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ERSON  HISTORY 

SHRINER 


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Ci)EfliIGHT  DEPOaii  V 


Four  Chapters  of  Paterson 
History  ^ 

I.  The  War  for  Independence 

II.  The  Early  White  Settlers 

III.  Struggle  for  Indu^rial  Supremacy 

IV.  Municipal    Admini^ration 

/    BY 

CHARLES  A.  SHRINER 

Author  of 

"Wit,   Wisdom  and  Foibles   of  the   Great." 


1919: 

Lent  &   Ovcrkawp  Pub.   Co. 

Printers 

Paterson,  N.J, 


Ccn4A4  Z 


Copyright,  1919, 
Charles  A.  Shriner.    ^ 


OCT  21  1919 

©Ci.A536345 

cy 

Record^ 

•vv^ 

V 

Introductory 


This  book  would  not  have  been  written  had  it  not  been 
for  the  liberality  of  a  publishing  house.  The  Lewis  His- 
torical Publishing  Company  is  about  to  issue  in  three 
volumes  William  Nelson's  History  of  Paterson.  All  who 
were  acquainted  with  Mr.  Nelson  knew  him  to  be  inde^ 
fatigable  in  his  historical  researches.  His  History  of 
Paterson  was  his  life's  work;  at  the  time  of  his  death  he 
had  written  over  a  million  words  of  his  History.  All  this 
vast  material,  together  with  a  great  deal  more  obtained 
from  equally  reliable  sources,  has  been  placed  at  the  disposal 
of  the  author  of  these  Four  Chapters  of  Paterson  History. 
This  book  is  intended  for  use  in  the  school  room  and  for  the 
perusal  of  such  persons  as  take  an  interest  in  the  early  days 
of  Paterson  and  in  the  growth  of  the  city  from  its  beginning 
to  the  eminence  it  has  attained  as  a  place  for  industry  and 
residence. 

C.  A.  S. 

Paterson,  N.  J.,  August  15,  1919. 


The  War  for  Independence 


The  War  for  Independence 


The  people  of  New  Jersey  took  an  active  part  in  the 
quarrel  between  this  country  and  Great  Britain  over  the 
question  of  taxation.  They  were  willing  contributors,  both 
in  men  and  money,  to  the  wars  waged  by  England  against 
the  French,  the  Indians  and  other  enemies  in  this  country, 
but  they  wanted  to  have  something  to  say  about  how  the 
money  was  to  be  collected  for  the  benefit  of  the  mother 
country.  The  subject  was  one  that  afforded  numerous  dis- 
cussions in  the  assembly  and  other  lawmaking  bodies. 

GROUNDS   FOR   LOCAL   COMPLAINT.  ^ 

But  the  people  living  in  this  part  of  New  Jersey  had 
two  additional  grievances.  The  English  government  passed 
a  law  making  it  a  crime  to  cut  down  any  white  pine  trees 
on  lands  not  enclosed  by  fences;  English  men  of  money 
owned  millions  of  acres  of  forests,  especially  south  of  New 
Jersey,  and  they  were  making  fortunes  out  of  cutting  down 
the  white  trees  and  using  them  for  masts;  they  did  not  want 
any  interference  with  the  profit  they  were  making  and  so 
they  had  enacted  the  law  which  made  it  a  crime  to  cut 
down  any  pine  trees  on  unenclosed  lands,  as  most  of  the 
lands  in  New  Jersey  were. 

The  second  grievance  arose  from  the  extensive  mining 
operations  carried  on  in  the  northern  part  of  what  is  now 
Passaic  county;  there  was  no  reason  in  those  days  why 
articles  of  iron  should  not  have  been  made  in  this  country: 
there  was  plenty  of  iron  in  the  earth ;  there  were  men  to  dig 
it  and  there  were  men  who  knew  how  to  work  the  iron  after 


8  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

the  ore  had  been  reduced:  England  then  passed  a  law 
makmg  it  a  crime  for  any  person  in  this  country  to  make 
any  article  of  iron.  The  law  was  passed  in  the  interest  of 
the  iron  manufacturers  of  England.  All  that  the  people  in 
this  country  could  do  was  to  ship  the  iron,  after  it  had 
been  reduced  from  the  ore,  to  England,  where  men  would 
make  it  into  various  articles  and  sell  these  back  to  the 
people  in  this  country  at  a  high  rate  of  profit.  Nevertheless 
the  mines  at  Charlotteburg  and  Ringwood  continued  to  be 
worked ;  the  iron  was  taken  by  wagon  through  Paterson  to 
the  river  at  Passaic  where  it  was  loaded  on  vessels  and  taken 
to  England. 

STILL  LOYAL  TO  ENGLAND. 

The  population  in  this  country  at  that  time  was  divided 
into  two  parties:  those  who  thought  England  was  wrong 
and  those  who  thought  England  was  right.  Among  the 
former  was  Henry  Garritse,  who  lived  along  the  river  road, 
near  where  a  cross  road  leads  to  Clifton,  and  Theunis  Dey, 
who  lived  in  Preakness.  Both  attended  a  meeting  held  in 
Newark  in  July,  1774,  where  arrangements  were  begun  for 
the  formation  of  a  congress  of  the  colonies.  Both  were 
members  of  the  state  legislature  which  met  at  Perth  Amboy 
in  January,  1775,  and  both  voted  for  a  petition  sent  to 
England  asking  relief  from  some  of  the  laws  to  which  this 
country  objected.  The  only  answer  came  from  Parliament 
in  April  in  the  form  of  more  laws  hampering  industry  in 
this  country. 

At  a  meeting  held  at  Passaic  Bridge  in  May,  1775,  a 
committee  of  twenty-three  was  appointed  to  assist  in  carry- 
ing out  the  plan  adopted  in  Newark.  Of  this  committee  six 
lived  in  what  are  now  the  boundaries  of  the  city  of  Paterson : 
Michael  Vreeland,  Francis  Post,  Abraham  Godwin,  Cor- 
nelius Van  Winkle,  Henry  Post  and  Stephen  Ryder;  the 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  9 

last-named  subsequently  deserted  the  American  cause  and 
went  over  to  the  English.  At  the  time  the  committee  of 
twenty-three  was  appointed  there  was  little  thought  of 
independence  and  all  were  still  loyal  to  England.  The  Pro- 
vincial Congress  met  in  Trenton  on  May  23,  1775,  and 
made  arrangements  to  enroll  all  males  between  sixteen  and 
fifty  years  of  age  in  the  militia,  but  there  was  little  thought 
at  the  time  that  the  soldiers  thus  called  together  might 
shoulder  arms  against  England;  even  in  November,  1775, 
the  assembly  of  which  Henry  Garritse  and  Theunis  Dey 
were  members,  passed  a  resolution  of  loyalty  to  England. 

A  HISTORIC  BRIDGE. 

One  of  the  first  bridges  thrown  across  the  Passaic  river 
stood,  where  a  bridge  at  the  present  day  spans  the  stream, 
in  the  lower  part  of  Passaic,  below  the  old  church  on  the 
hill  so  plainly  visible  to  passengers  on  the  Erie  passing 
through  Passaic.  Unlike  the  present  bridge,  it  was  a  rude 
structure,  bililt  of  wood,  but  it  was  of  more  importance  to 
the  country  than  has  been  any  bridge  erected  there  since. 
In  warfare  a  point  of  the  greatest  consideration  is  the  move- 
ment of  troops;  the  bridge  at  Passaic  was  the  only  bridge 
on  which  troops  could  cross  the  river  and  consequently  it 
was  of  vast  importance  when,  in  November,  1776,  General 
William  Howe  had  formed  a  plan  of  entering  New  Jersey 
from  the  North  and  attacking  the  American  forces.  The 
English  were  far  stronger  in  numbers  than  were  the  Ameri- 
cans and  it  required  a  great  deal  of  good  generalship  on  the 
part  of  Washington  to  prevent  the  destruction  of  his  army. 
The  Americans  still  had  possession  of  Fort  Washington,  in 
the  upper  part  of  what  is  now  New  York  city,  but  they 
were  being  harassed  by  the  British  and  their  mercenaries. 
General  Greene  was  encamped  at  Fort  Lee  and  here  he  was 
joined  on  November  10  by  General  Mercer,  who  came  up 


10  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

from  the  southern  part  of  New  Jersey ;  these  were  the  first 
troops  that  passed  through  Paterson  and  crossed  the  river 
at  Passaic.  Lord  Stirling,  an  American  General,  was  with 
his  forces  some  distance  up  the  Hudson  river;  he  crossed 
the  Hudson  at  Haverstraw  and  marched  to  Fort  Lee,  and 
thence  to  Passaic,  where  he  arrived  on  the  14th;  with  his 
eight  regiments  he  proceeded  to  his  destination,  New  Bruns- 
wick, leaving  three  regiments  at  Rahway. 

A  RACE  ACROSS  BERGEN  COUNTY. 

Washington  had  seen  through  the  plans  of  the  British 
generals  and  as  early  as  November  7  had  sent  word  to  Pas- 
saic, warning  the  people  there  of  the  treatment  they  might 
expect  at  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  He  reached  Fort  Lee 
from  Peekskill  on  November  3  and  on  the  15th  was  at 
Hackensack.  Then  he  hurried  back  to  Fort  Lee,  for  the 
British  had  demanded  the  surrender  of  Fort  Washington. 
The  British,  however,  were  too  strong  for  the  Americans 
and  it  was  with  sadness  that  he  heard  of  the  surrender  of 
the  fort  with  all  its  garrison  and  nearly  all  its  stores ;  when 
it  was  evident  that  the  fort  would  be  compelled  to  surrender 
an  attempt  was  made  to  move  men  and  stores  across  the 
river,  but  the  British  appeared  in  overwhelming  forces 
before  this  could  be  accomplished. 

The  surrender  of  the  fort  opened  the  way  for  the  British 
to  carry  out  their  plan  of  marching  into  New  Jersey  and  on 
the  19th  Lord  Cornwallis  crossed  the  river  and  landed  at 
Closter,  about  five  miles  above  Fort  Lee.  Greene  at  once 
abandoned  Fort  Lee  and  started  for  Hackensack  and  he  was 
as  expeditious  about  it  as  possible,  for  it  was  a  question 
whether  he  or  the  British  could  first  reach  the  bridge  called 
even  at  the  present  day  New  Bridge.  Fortunately  the 
British  did  not  march  as  quickly  as  had  been  feared  and  the 
American  army  crossed  in  safety.    From  November  15  to  20 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  11 

Washington  and  his  army  were  at  Hackensack  preparing  for 
the  toilsome  march  to  New  Brunswick  where  they  hoped  to 
join  Lord  Stirling.  They  left  Hackensack  on  the  20th  and, 
passing  through  where  Lodi  and  Garfield  are  now  situated, 
reached  Passaic  in  two  days.  On  the  same  day  on  which 
they  crossed  the  bridge  some  British  troops  appeared  on  the 
other  side,  but  it  was  too  late,  for  the  American  forces  were 
busily  engaged  in  tearing  down  the  bridge,  succeeding  in 
accomplishing  this  before  the  British  could  begin  an  attack. 
Among  those  who  assisted  in  this  work  of  destruction  were 
men  from  the  immediate  neighborhood,  notably  John  H. 
Post,  a  farmer  and  carpenter,  who  was  born  where  Passaic 
now  stands,  and  who  in  after  years  frequently  told  of  the 
work  of  destruction  done  on  the  22d  of  November.  The 
American  armies  now  lay  on  one  side  of  the  river  and  the 
British  on  the  other.  Washington  gave  his  forces  a  rest 
and  on  the  28th  started  the  march  to  New  Brunswick,  much 
to  the  chagrin  of  the  British  who  could  see  the  preparations 
for  the  retreat  without  being  able  to  do  anything  to  interfere 
with  it. 

WHY  THE  BRITISH  WERE  SO  SLOW. 

When  the  British  found  themselves  safe  on  the  New 
Jersey  side  of  the  Hudson  they  took  time  to  develop  their 
plans.  A  detachment  was  at  once  sent  forward  to  find  out 
where  the  Americans  were  and  it  was  this  detachment  that 
arrived  too  late  at  New  Bridge  and  subsequently  at  Passaic. 
After  a  consultation  between  Howe  and  Cornwallis  the  main 
body  started  into  motion  on  the  24th  and  two  days  later 
reached  the  Passaic  river,  where  they  found  out  what  had 
taken  place.  In  order  to  reach  the  American  army  it  was 
necessary  to  cross  the  Passaic  and  this  the  British  de- 
termined to  do.  There  was  a  ford  in  the  river,  just  below 
where  Dundee  dam  now  stands,  but  the  river  was  swollen 


12  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATBRSON  HISTORY 

and  huge  cakes  of  ice  were  coming  down  the  stream.  Yet 
the  ford  offered  the  only  opportunity  of  reaching  the  Ameri- 
cans and  so  the  British  determined  to  try  it.  In  order  to 
find  the  shallow  parts  of  the  ford  and  avoid  the  deep  holes 
the  British  compelled  Adrian  Post,  the  son  of  a  miller 
nearby,  to  go  ahead.  Post  had  no  choice  in  the  matter  and 
did  as  he  was  told,  contracting  a  pulmonary  trouble,  from 
which  he  died  twelve  years  later.  The  British  crossed  the 
river  at  the  ford,  marched  along  the  Passaic  to  Second  river 
and  thence  to  Newark,  reaching  the  latter  city  just  as  the 
Americans  were  marching  out  of  it  on  the  other  side. 

This  pursuit  of  the  American  forces  gave  rise  to  an 
animated  discussion  in  the  British  Parliament  some  time 
after.  It  was  pointed  out  that  it  had  taken  the  British  two 
days  to  cover  eight  miles;  it  was  pleaded  in  their  behalf 
that  the  weather  was  very  bad,  there  being  a  great  deal  of 
rain  and  cold,  but  the  opinion  that  most  of  the  British 
people  arrived  at  was  expressed  by  one  of  their  statesmen, 
who  said:  "If  our  generals  had  not  been  so  fond  of  their 
beds  and  bellies  the  revolution  would  have  ended  in  British 
success  in  1776  in  New  Jersey."  This  may  have  been  true, 
although  the  generalship  of  Washington  might  have  pre- 
vented a  defeat;  the  fondness  charged  to  the  British  was 
fully  corroborated  by  investigations  in  later  years.  When 
the  British  forces  had  effected  the  crossing  of  the  Passaic 
river,  they  abandoned  themselves  to  pillage.  Some  of  them 
strayed  as  far  as  where  the  Market  street  bridge  now  stands 
and  they  took  possession  of  everything  they  could  lay  their 
hands  on;  a  great  deal  of  what  they  could  not  carry  away 
they  destroyed,  a  proceeding  the  soldiers  indulged  in  all 
along  their  line  of  march.  Every  house  they  came  to  was 
stripped  of  its  furniture  and  every  bam  of  its  contents. 
Hundreds  of  horses,  cows,  sheep,  hogs  and  chickens,  and 
thousands  of  dollars  in  coin,  jewelry,  clothing  and  produce 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  13 

followed  in  the  wake  of  Washington's  retreating  anny  but 
in  the  possession  of  British  soldiers. 

Comwallis  and  Howe  followed  Washington  to  New 
Brunswick ;  here  Comwallis  was  anxious  to  begin  an  attack 
but  was  restrained  by  Howe,  who  thought  it  better  to  wait. 
The  British  forces  did  wait  and  thus  they  made  possible  the 
battles  of  Trenton  and  Princeton. 

On  November  28  another  body  of  British  troops,  princi- 
pally Hessian  mercenaries,  left  New  York,  and  followed 
Howe  and  Comwallis,  plundering  as  they  went.  In  Sep- 
tember, 1777,  a  marauding  party  from  Sir  Henry  Clinton's 
army  visited  Passaic  and  went  up  the  river  as  far  as  Market 
street,  Paterson. 

In  May  of  that  same  year  General  Nathaniel  Heard,  of 
the  New  Jersey  militia,  threw  up  some  fortifications  at 
Pompton  and  in  the  following  month  was  ordered  back  to 
the  same  place  by  General  Philemon  Dickinson,  at  the 
request  of  General  Washington.  One  of  the  objects  of 
General  Heard's  presence  at  Pompton  was  the  protection  of 
the  Cannonball  road,  by  which  cannon  balls,  made  at  Ring- 
wood,  were  taken  to  the  American  forces.  This  road  was 
formerly  a  goal  of  sightseers  from  Paterson;  what  was  left 
of  it  some  years  ago  was  discernible  a  short  distance  north 
of  the  Pompton  Lakes  station  on  the  New  York,  Susque- 
hanna &  Western  railroad,  and  from  there  it  could  be  easily 
traced  to  Rotten  pond;  it  was  finally  abandoned  by  the 
authorities. 

After  the  battle  of  Monmouth  in  1778,  Washington 
returned  to  the  Hudson  river,  passing  through  Passaic  on 
July  9.  In  October  Lord  Stirling  had  his  headquarters  at 
Passaic,  the  object  being  to  put  a  stop  to  the  doings  of 
marauding  parties  of  British  soldiery. 


14  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

In  May,  1779,  Captain  Ferguson  headed  a  marauding 
party  which  penetrated  through  Bergen  county  and  came 
to  Paterson  by  way  of  Paramus.  At  Vreeland  avenue  they 
took  two  horses  from  Abraham  C.  Vreeland  and  at  Twen- 
tieth avenue  five  horses  from  Michael  Vreeland.  They  con- 
tinued on  down  the  river  road  for  some  distance,  pillaging 
Rs  they  went. 

On  May  29,  1779,  Washington  broke  camp  at  Middle- 
brook  for  the  purpose  of  checking  a  British  advance  in  the 
direction  of  West  Point,  the  American  army  passing  through 
Pompton  and  Ringwood.  They  went  over  the  same  route 
later  in  the  year  on  the  way  to  winter  quarters  at  Morris- 
town,  where  Lafayette  joined  Washington. 

WASHINGTON  AT  TOTOWA. 

Washington  with  his  army  was  encamped  between  the 
Falls  of  the  Passaic  and  Preakness  on  July  4,  1780,  remain- 
ing there  until  the  29th  of  the  month,  when  the  army 
marched  to  Paramus,  being  encamped  there  and  at  Tappan. 
Washington  had  been  informed  that  the  British  contem- 
plated an  attack  on  Rhode  Island  and  in  order  to  check  this 
the  American  forces  were  marched  towards  the  Hudson 
river  as  if  intending  to  attack  the  British  in  New  York. 
Washington's  threatening  attitude  induced  the  British  to 
give  up  their  idea  of  marching  towards  Rhode  Island  and, 
this  having  been  accomplished,  the  American  forces  returned 
to  New  Jersey.  On  October  7,  Washington  wrote  from 
Paramus : 

"We  have  had  a  cold,  wet,  and  tedious  march,  on  account  of  the 
feeble  state  of  our  cattle.  My  intention  is  to  proceed  with  them  to  the 
neighborhood  of  the  Passaic  Falls." 

The  army  returned  to  its  former  camp  at  Totowa  and 
Preakness  and  remained  there  until  November  27,  when 


THE   WAR   FOR   INDEPENDENCE  15 

Washington  went  into  winter  quarters  at  Morristown,  leav- 
ing the  New  Jersey  Brigade  at  Pompton  and  the  Clove. 

Washington's  headquarters,  while  his  army  was  in 
camp  at  Totowa  and  Preakness,  were  at  the  Dey  house,  a 
building  which  can  be  reached  at  the  present  day  by  going 
about  two  and  a  half  miles  along  the  road  running  westerly 
from  the  river  at  Lincoln  Bridge.  When  Washington  was  at 
the  Dey  house  that  building  was  one  of  the  most  preten- 
tious in  this  part  of  the  country.  Just  when  it  was  built  is 
a  matter  of  uncertainty,  the  likelihood  being  that  it  was 
erected  about  a  quarter  of  a  century  before  the  Revolution 
by  Theunis  Dey,  a  man  whose  name  figures  prominently  in 
the  Revolutionary  annals  of  the  time.  He  was  the  son  of 
Dirck  Dey  and  according  to  some  traditions  it  was  Dirck 
Dey  who  erected  the  building  before  the  birth  of  Theunis. 
The  house,  two  stories  with  a  double  pitch  roof,  has  a 
frontage  of  fifty-two  feet  and  is  thirty  feet  in  depth.  The 
house  is  of  brick,  the  doors  and  windows  being  handsomely 
framed  with  polished  brown  sandstone.  The  side  and  rear 
are  of  rubble  work.  The  timbers  on  the  inside  are  of 
massive  oak,  fastened  together  with  pins  of  wood,  after  the 
fashion  of  building  houses  in  those  days.  A  centre  hall, 
twelve  feet  wide,  has  two  rooms  on  each  side.  The  house 
stands  today  as  it  stood  during  Washington's  occupancy, 
with  the  exception  of  the  two  dormer  windows  in  the  roof, 
these  having  been  added  many  years  later. 

The  location  of  the  various  divisions  of  the  American 
army,  while  Washington  was  at  Preakness,  is  indicated  on 
the  accompanying  map. 

A  VISIT  TO  Washington's  camp. 

The  Marquis  de  Chastellux,  a  French  nobleman,  visited 
Washington  at  Preakness  and  tells  of  it  as  follows: 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  17 

I  found  myself  in  a  small  plain,  where  I  saw  a  handsome  farm ;  a 
small  camp  which  seemed  to  cover  it,  a  large  tent  extended  in  the 
court,  and  several  wagons  round  it,  convinced  me  that  this  was  his 
Excellency's  quarter;  for  it  is  thus  Mr.  Washington  is  called  in  the 
army,  and  throughout  America.    M.  de  la  Fayette  was  in  conversation 
with  a  taU  man,  five  foot  nine  inches  high,   (about  five  foot  ten  inches 
and  a  half  English,)    of  a  noble  and  mild  countenance.     It  was   the 
general  himself.    I  was  soon  off  horseback,  and  near  him.    The  compli- 
ments were  short ;  the  sentiments  with  which  I  was  animated,  and  the 
good  wishes  he  testified  for  me  were  not  equivocal.     He  conducted  me 
to  his  house,  where  I  found  the  company  still  at  table,  although  the 
dinner  had  been  long  over.     He  presented  me  to  the  Generals  Knox, 
Wayne,  Howe,  &c.  and  to  his  family,  then  composed  of  Colonels  Hamil- 
ton and  Tilgman,  his  secretaries  and  his  aids-de-camp,  and  of  Major 
Gibbs,  commander  of  his  guards ;  for  in  England  and  America,  the  aids- 
de-camp,  adjutants  and  other  officers   attached  to  the  general,  form 
what  is  called  his  family.     A  fresh  dinner  was  prepared  for  me  and 
mine;  and  the  present  was  prolonged  to  keep  me  company.     A  few 
glasses  of  claret  and  madeira  accelerated  the  acquaintances  I  had  to 
make,  and  I  soon  felt  myself  at  my  ease  near  the  greatest  and  the 
best  of  men.     The  goodness  and  benevolence  which  characterise  him, 
are  evident  from  every  thing  about  him ;  but  the  confidence  he  gives 
birth  to,  never  occasions  improper  familiarity ;   for  the  sentiment  he 
inspires  has  the  same  origin  in  every  individual,  a  profound  esteem  for 
his  virtues,  and  a  high  opinion  of  his  talents.     About  nine  o'clock  thQ 
general  officers  withdrew  to  their  quarters,  which  were  all  at  a  consider- 
able distance ;  but  as  the  general  wished  me  to  stay  in  his  own  house, 
I  remained  some  time  with  him,  after  which  he  conducted  me  to  the 
chamber  prepared  for  my  aids-de-camp  and  me.    This  chamber  occupied 
the  fourth  part  of  his  lodgings ;  he  apologized  to  me  for  the  little  room 
he  had  in  his  disposal,  but  always  with  a  noble  politeness,  which  was 
neither  complimentary  nor  troublesome. 

At  nine  the  next  morning  they  informed  me  that  his  excellency 
was  come  down  into  the  parlor.  This  room  served  at  once  as  audience 
chamber  and  dining-room.  I  immediately  went  to  wait  on  him,  an(J 
f ovmd  breakfast  prepared.  •-  ^ 

Whilst  we  were  at  breakfast,  horses  were  brought,  and  General 
Washington  gave  orders  for  the  army  to  get  under  arms  at  the  head 
of  the  camp.  The  weather  was  very  bad,  and  it  had  already  begun 
raining ;  we  waited  half  an  hour ;  but  the  General  seeing  that  it  was 
more  likely  to  increase  than  to  diminish,  determined  to  get  on  horse- 
back. Two  horses  were  brought  him,  which  were  a  present  from  the 
state  of  Virginia ;  he  mounted  one  himself,  and  gave  me  the  other. 
Mr.  Lynch  and  Mr.  de  Montesquieu,  had  each  of  them,  also,  a  very 
handsome  blood  horse,  such  as  we  could  not  find  at  Newport  for  any 
money.  We  repaired  to  the  artillery  camp,  where  General  Knox 
received  us :  the  artillery  was  numerous,  and  the  gunners,  in  very  fine 
order,  were  formed  in  parade,  in  the  foreign  manner,  that  is,  each  gunner 
at  his  battery,  and  ready  to  fire.  The  General  was  so  good  as  to 
apologize  to  me  for  the  cannon  not  firing  to  salute  me;  he  said,  that 


18  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

having  put  all  the  troops  on  the  other  side  of  the  river  in  motion,  and ' 
apprized  them  that  he  might  hiinself  march  along  the  right  bank,  he 
was  afraid  of  giving  the  alarm,  and  of  deceiving  the  detachments  that 
were  out.  We  gained  at  length,  the  right  of  the  army,  where  we  saw 
the  Pennsylvania  line ;  it  was  composed  of  two  brigades,  each  forming 
three  battalions,  without  reckoning  the  light  infantry,  which  were  de- 
tached with  the  Marquis  de  la  Fayette.  General  Wayne,  who  com- 
manded it,  was  on  horseback,  as  well  as  the  Brigadiers  and  Colonels. 
They  were  all  well  mounted :  the  officers  also  had  a  very  military  air ; 
they  were  well  ranged,  and  saluted  very  gracefully.  Each  brigade  had 
a  band  of  music;  the  march  they  were  then  playing  was  the  Huron. 
I  knew  that  this  line,  though  in  want  of  many  things,  was  the  best 
clothed  in  the  army ;  so  that  his  excellency  asking  me  whether  I  would 
proceed,  and  see  the  whole  army,  or  go  by  the  shortest  road  to  the  camp 
■of  the  Marquis,  I  accepted  the  latter  proposal.  The  troops  ought  to 
thank  me  for  it,  for  the  rain  was  falling  with  redoubled  force ;  they 
were  dismissed,  therefore,  and  we  arrived  heartily  wet  at  the  Marquis 
de  la  Fayette's  quarters,  where  I  warmed  myself  with  great  pleasure, 
partaking,  from  time  to  time,  of  a  large  bowl  of  grog,  which  is  station- 
ary on  his  table,  and  is  presented  to  every  officer  who  enters.  The  rain 
appearing  to  cease,  or  inclined  to  cease  for  a  moment,  we  availed  our- 
selves of  the  opportunity  to  follow  his  excellency  to  the  camp  of  the 
Marquis :  we  found  all  his  troops  in  order  of  battle  on  the  heights  to 
the  left,  and  himself  at  their  head ;  expressing  by  his  air  and  counten- 
ance, that  he  was  happier  in  receiving  me  there,  than  at  his  estate  in 
Auvergne.  The  confidence  and  attachment  of  the  troops,  are  for  him 
invaluable  possessions,  well  acquired  riches,  of  which  nobody  can  de- 
prive him ;  but  what,  in  my  opinion,  is  still  more  flattering  for  a  young 
man  of  his  age,  is  the  influence  and  consideration  he  has  acquired 
among  the  political,  as  well  as  the  military  order :  I  do  not  fear  contra- 
diction when  I  say,  that  private  letters  from  him  have  frequently  pro- 
duced more  effect  on  some  states  than  the  strongest  exhortations  of  the 
Congress.  On  seeing  him,  one  is  at  a  loss  which  most  to  admire,  that 
so  young  a  man  as  he  should  have  given  such  eminent  proofs  of  talents, 
or  that  a  man  so  tried,  should  give  hopes  of  so  long  a  career  of  glory. 
Fortunate  his  country,  if  she  knows  how  to  avail  herself  of  them ;  more 
fortunate  still  should  she  stand  in  no  need  of  calling  them  into  exer- 
tion ! 

The  rain  spared  us  no  more  at  the  camp  of  the  Marquis,  than  at 
that  of  the  main  army;  so  that  our  review  being  finished,  I  saw  with 
pleasure  General  Washington  set  off  in  a  gallop  to  regain  his  quarters. 
We  reached  them  as  soon  as  the  badness  of  the  roads  would  permit  us. 
At  our  return  we  found  a  good  dinner  ready,  and  about  twenty  guests, 
among  whom  were  Generals  Howe  and  Sinclair.  The  repast  was  in 
the  English  fashion,  consisting  of  eight  or  ten  large  dishes  of  butcher's 
meat,  and  poultry,  with  vegetables  of  several  sorts,  followed  by  a  second 
course  of  pastry,  comprized  under  the  two  denominations  of  pies  and 
-puddings.  After  this  the  cloth  was  taken  off,  and  apples  and  a  great 
quantity  of  nuts  were  served,  which  General  Washington  usually  con- 
tinues eating  for  two  hours,  toasting  and  conversing  all  the  time.   These 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  19 

nuts  are  small  and  dry,  and  have  so  hard  a  shell,  (hickory  nuts)  that 
they  can  only  be  broken  by  the  hammer;  they  are  served  half  oi>en, 
and  the  company  are  never  done  picking  and  eating  them.  The  conver- 
sation was  calm  and  agreeable;  his  Excellency  was  pleased  to  enter 
with  me  into  the  particulars  of  some  of  the  principal  operations  of  the 
war,  but  always  with  a  modesty  and  conciseness,  which  proved  that  it 
was  from  pure  complaisance  he  mentioned  it.  About  half  past  seven  we 
rose  from  table,  and  immediately  the  servants  came  to  shorten  it,  and 
convert  it  into  a  round  one;  for  at  dinner  it  was  placed  diagonally  to 
give  more  room.  I  was  surprised  at  this  manoeuvre,  and  asked  the 
reason  of  It;  I  was  told  they  were  going  to  lay  the  cloth  for  supper. 
In  half  an  hour  I  retired  to  my  chamber,  fearing  lest  the  General 
might  have  business,  and  that  he  remained  in  company  only  on  my 
account ;  but  at  the  end  of  another  half  hour,  I  was  informed  that  his 
Excellency  expected  me  at  supper.  I  returned  to  the  dining-room, 
protesting  against  this  supper;  but  the  General  told  me  he  was  accus- 
tomed to  take  something  in  the  evening;  that  if  I  would  be  seated,  I 
should  only  eat  some  fruit,  and  assist  in  the  conversation.  I  desired 
nothing  better,  for  there  were  then  no  strangers,  and  nobody  remained 
but  the  General's  family.  The  supper  was  composed  of  three  or  four 
light  dishes,  some  fruit,  and  above  all,  a  great  abimdance  of  nuts,  which 
were  as  well  received  in  the  evening  as  at  dinner. 

The  weather  was  so  bad  on  the  25th,  that  it  was  impossible  for  me 
to  stir,  even  to  wait  on  the  Generals,  to  whom  M.  de  la  Fayette  waa 
to  conduct  me.  I  easily  consoled  myself  for  this,  finding  it  a  great 
luxury  to  pass  a  whole  day  with  General  Washington,  as  if  he  were 
at  his  house  in  the  country,  and  had  nothing  to  do.  The  Generals 
Glover,  Huntington,  and  some  others,  dined  with  us,  and  the  Colonels 
Stewart  and  Butler,  two  oflScers  distinguished  in  the  army. 

The  weather  being  fair,  on  the  26th,  I  got  on  horseback,  after 
breakfasting  with  the  general.  He  was  so  attentive  as  to  give  me 
the  horse  he  rode  on,  the  day  of  my  arrival,  which  I  had  greatly 
commended :  I  found  him  as  good  as  he  is  handsome ;  but  above  all, 
perfectly  well  broke,  and  well  trained,  having  a  good  mouth,  easy  in 
hand,  and  stopping  short  in  a  gallop  without  bearing  the  bit.  I  men- 
tion these  minute  particulars,  because  it  is  the  general  himself  who 
breaks  all  his  own  horses ;  and  he  is  a  very  excellent  and  bold  horse- 
man, leaping  the  highest  fences,  and  going  extremely  quick,  without 
standing  upon  his  stirrups,  bearing  on  the  bridle,  or  letting  his  horse 
run  wild ;  circumstances  which  our  young  men  look  upon  as  so  essential 
a  part  of  English  horsemanship,  that  they  would  rather  break  a  leg  or 
an  arm  than  renounce  them. 

My  first  visit  was  to  General  Wayne,  where  Mr.  de  la  Fayette 
was  waiting  to  conduct  me  to  the  other  general  oflScers  of  the  line. 
We  were  received  by  General  Huntington,  who  appeared  rather  young 
for  the  rank  of  Brigadier-General,  which  he  has  held  two  years:  his 
carriage  is  cold  and  reserved,  but  one  is  not  long  in  perceiving  him  to 
be  a  man  of  sense  and  information ;  by  General  Glover,  about  five  and 
forty,  a  little  man,  but  active  and  a  good  soldier ;  by  General  Howe,  who 
is  one  of  the  oldest  Major-Generals,  and  who  enjoys  the  consideration 


20  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

due  to  his  rank,  though,  from  unfavourable  circumstances,  he  has  not 
been  fortunate  in  war,  particularly  in  Georgia,  where  he  commanded 
with  a  very  small  force,  at  the  time  General  Provost  took  possession 
of  it :  he  is  fond  of  music,  the  arts,  and  pleasure,  and  has  a  cultivated 
mind.  I  remained  a  considerable  time  with  him,  and  saw  a  very 
curious  lusus  natura,  but  as  hideous  as  possible.  It  was  a  young  man 
of  a  Dutch  family,  whose  head  was  become  so  enormous,  that  it  took 
the  whole  nourishment  from  his  body ;  and  his  hands  and  arms  were  so 
weak  that  he  was  unable  to  make  use  of  them.  He  lies  constantly  in 
bed,  with  his  monstrous  head  supported  by  a  pillow;  and  as  he  has 
long  been  accustomed  to  lie  on  his  right  side,  his  right  arm  is  in  a 
state  of  atrophy :  he  is  not  quite  an  idiot,  but  he  could  never  learn 
any  thing,  and  has  no  more  reason  than  a  child  of  five  or  six  years 
old,  though  he  is  seven  and  twenty.  This  extraordinary  derangement 
of  the  animal  economy  proceeds  from  a  dropsy,  with  which  he  was 
attacked  in  his  infancy,  and  which  displaced  the  bones  that  form  the 
cranium.  We  know  that  these  bones  are  joined  together  by  sutures, 
which  are  soft  in  the  first  period  of  life,  and  harden  and  ossify  with 
age.  Such  an  exuberance,  so  great  an  afflux  of  humour  in  that,  which 
of  all  the  viscera  seems  to  require  the  most  exact  proportion,  as  well 
in  what  relates  to  the  life  as  to  the  understanding  of  man,  afford 
stronger  proof  of  the  necessity  of  an  equilibrium  between  the  solids  and 
the  fluids,  than  the  existence  of  the  final  causes. 

The  big-headed  man,  referred  to  by  the  Marquis,  was 
Pieter  Van  Winkle,  who  was  bom  in  1754,  and  died  at  the 
age  of  thirty-one  years.  Samuel  Dewees,  who  was  a  fifer 
in  a  Pennsylvania  regiment,  described  him  as  follows: 

His  body  was  chunkey  and  about  the  size  of  a  healthy  boy  of  ten 
or  twelve  years  old  and  he  laid  in  a  kind  of  cradle,  but  his  head 
(although  shaped  like  to  a  human  head),  was  like  a  flour  barrel  in 
size,  and  it  was  common  for  one  soldier  to  describe  it  to  others  by 
comparing  it  to  a  flour  barrel.  It  had  to  be  lifted  about  (the  body 
could  not  support  it)  whenever  and  wherever  it  had  to  be  moved  to. 
His  senses  appeared  to  be  good,  and  it  was  usual  for  us  to  say,  "he  can 
talk  like  a  lawyer."  He  would  talk  to  every  person  that  visited  him. 
All  the  soldiers  that  visited  him  and  that  had  any  money,  would  always 
give  him  something.  It  was  said  that  General  Washington  when  he 
went  to  see  him  gave  his  father  the  sum  of  four  or  five  hundred  dollars 
as  a  present  to  aid  in  his  support.  Although  I  have  here  attempted  a 
description  of  his  person  and  appearance,  it  beggared  every  description 
I  can  give,  as  no  person  can  conceive  truly  his  appearance,  but  those 
that  seen  him. 

Among  the  visitors  to  Pieter  Van  Winkle  was  General 
LaFayette,  who,  on  his  return  visit  to  Totowa,  in  1824,  in- 
quired after  the  health  of  this  prodigy. 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  21 

ANECDOTES  ABOUT  WASHINGTON. 

Numerous  anecdotes  are  told  of  Washington  while  he 
was  in  the  neighborhood,  anecdotes  trite  in  themselves,  but 
interesting  because  of  their  connection  with  Washington. 
Thus,  Lena  Van  Houten,  who  lived  with  her  parents  on  the 
bank  of  the  Passaic  river  near  Lincoln  bridge,  was  returning 
to  her  home  with  a  pail  of  water  from  the  river;  she  was  a 
young  girl  and  as  she  trudged  along  merrily  she  was  singing. 
She  noticed  that  she  was  being  followed  at  a  respectful 
distance  by  a  man  who  was  evidently  deriving  pleasure  from 
her  singing.  She  entered  the  house  and  was  followed  by  the 
man,  who  with  stately  courtesy  asked  her  to  repeat  the  song. 
She  looked  up  and  saw  the  well  known  face  and  figure  of 
George  Washington.  She  was  so  overcome  that  she  left  the 
room  as  hurriedly  as  possible. 

Simeon  Hopper  was  born  in  1780  and  he  was  only  a  few 
hours  old  when  Washington  fondled  him;  holding  him  up 
in  his  broad  hands,  he  exclaimed,  "In  eighteen  years  I  shall 
have  another  soldier." 

Washington  occasionally  went  out  hunting  and  at  times 
was  accompanied  by  Cornelius  Doremus,  then  fifteen  years 
of  age.  Doremus  frequently  told  that  it  was  Washington's 
custom  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  to  place  a  Bible  upon 
a  stand,  read  a  chapter  and  then  offer  prayer.  When  Wash- 
ington was  about  to  leave,  he  took  Cornelius  by  the  hand 
and  said,  "Cornelius,  you  are  a  good  boy.  Always  mind  your 
father,  and  speak  the  truth." 

TRIAL  OF  Arnold's  accomplice. 

Benedict  Arnold  visited  Washington  at  Preakness  on 
July  28,  1780,  probably  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  all  the 
information  possible,  for  he  was  already  in  communication 
with  the  British,  to  whom  he  had  offered  to  surrender  West 
Point.    When  Major  John  Andre  was  arrested,  Joshua  Hett 


22  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

Smith  was  also  taken  into  custody,  for  he  had  accompanied 
Andre  to  the  place  where  the  treason  was  arranged.  Smith 
was  taken  along  when  the  army  moved  from  Tappan  to 
Totowa  and  he  was  there  tried  for  treason.  While  the  case 
was  pending  he  was  quartered  at  the  Passaic  Hotel,  corner 
of  River  and  Bank  streets,  Paterson,  concerning  which  he 
wrote  subsequently  that  the  landlady  refused  him  admit- 
tance when  she  discovered  who  he  was.  This  was  certainly 
not  at  all  surprising,  for  the  landlady  was  Mrs.  Abraham 
Godwin,  whose  husband  had  given  up  his  life  in  the  cause 
of  freedom;  two  of  her  sons  were  in  the  American  army  and 
a  third  was  in  a  British  prison  ship  in  New  York  harbor. 
The  court  rendered  a  peculiar  verdict:  it  was  to  the  effect 
that  Smith  was  guilty  of  all  the  acts  charged  against  him, 
but,  as  he  had  no  guilty  knowledge  of  the  intentions  of 
Andre,  he  was  acquitted.  In  anticipation  of  a  possible 
failure  of  justice  another  warrant  had  been  issued  for  his 
arrest  and  he  was  hurried  off  to  Goshen  for  another  trial. 
Here  he  made  his  escape  at  night  and  found  his  way  through 
Ringwood  and  Pompton,  back  to  Totowa.  He  spent  the  day 
concealed  in  the  woods  and  at  night  found  a  small  canoe  in 
which  he  crossed  the  Passaic.  He  gained  the  top  of  Garret 
mountain  and  finally  reached  Jersey  City,  from  which  escape 
to  the  British  in  New  York  was  a  matter  of  ease. 

A  COURT  MARTIAL  AT  POMPTON. 

The  Btory  of  the  revolt  of  some  New  Jersey  soldiers 
while  in  camp  at  Pompton  does  not  make  very  pleasant 
reading,  but  there  are  more  dark  pages  in  history  than  such 
as  give  pleasure.  The  trouble  began  on  January  1,  1781, 
when  the  Pennsylvania  line  mutinied.  It  may  be  said  in 
extenuation  of  the  gravity  of  their  offence,  that  the  soldiers 
were  ill-clad  and  half-starved  and  that  they  were  suffering 
all  other  privations  which  a  lack  of  funds  and  a  rigorous 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  23 

climate  could  bring.  There  was  also  a  question  whether  the 
men  were  not  right  in  demanding  that  they  should  have  the 
privilege  of  returning  to  their  homes.  They  had  enlisted 
"for  three  years  or  during  the  war."  What  did  this  mean? 
Were  the  men  to  serve  during  the  war  if  it  did  not  last  more 
than  three  years,  or  were  they  to  serve  during  the  whole  war 
no  matter  how  long  it  lasted?  The  Pennsylvania  Line  took 
up  their  march  to  Philadelphia  with  a  view  to  compelling 
Congress  to  redress  their  grievances.  Congress  appointed 
a  commission ;  the  difficulty  was  smoothed  over  and  the  men 
returned  to  their  camps.  The  mutineers  had  been  at  least 
partially  successful  and  this  had  a  bad  effect  on  the  New 
Jersey  soldiers.  Foreseeing  that  there  would  be  trouble, 
most  of  the  New  Jersey  soldiers  were  sent  to  Chatham.  One 
hundred  and  sixty  of  them  remained  at  Pompton.  One  of 
the  demands  these  made  was  that  they  should  receive  all 
the  pay  due  them  and  they  stipulated  that  they  would  take 
seventy-five  dollars  in  paper  money  for  every  dollar  due. 
The  legislature  of  New  Jersey  promptly  acceded  to  this^ 
demand,  emptying  the  state  treasury  in  doing  so.  There 
still  remained  other  grievances,  including  the  question  of  the^ 
term  of  their  enlistment.  They  were  told  that  the  matter 
should  be  looked  into  and  replied  that  their  own  oaths  were 
better  evidence  than  any  ofl&cial  records.  Unfortunately 
they  had  made  the  worst  possible  use,  especially  under  the 
circumstances,  of  the  money  they  had  received,  for  most  of 
it  found  its  way  into  the  till  at  the  tavern.  Tired  of  waiting 
for  relief,  they  placed  themselves  under  the  command  of 
Sergeant-Major  George  Grant  on  January  20  and  rose  in 
open  rebellion.  Grant  was  an  intelligent  soldier  and  writer, 
for  he  had  been  with  General  Sullivan  in  a  campaign 
against  the  Indians  in  1779  and  had  written  a  history  of  the 
expedition.  It  was  with  reluctance  that  he  accepted  the  new 
honor  thrust  upon  him.    A  few  of  the  mutineers  went  so.. 


24  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

far  as  to  talk  of  deserting  to  the  enemy,  but  this  was  not  the 
prevailing  spirit.  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  the  British  comman- 
der at  New  York,  however,  had  heard  some  of  the  whispers 
of  treason  and  he  was  anxious  to  take  the  full  benefit  of 
them.  He  appointed  commissioners  to  treat  with  the  in- 
surgents and  sent  an  armed  force  to  support  them.  When 
the  insurgents  heard  of  this  they  passed  a  resolution  that 
they  would  at  once  put  to  death  any  person  who  suggested 
desertion  to  the  British  and,  furthermore,  that  they  would 
hang  any  British  emissary  who  made  any  overtures  to  that 
effect.  A  delegation  from  the  New  Jersey  legislature  arrived, 
willing  to  make  any  promises  that  could  be  kept.  The 
soldiers  went  back  to  their  tents  and  huts  but  they  did  so 
reluctantly  and  it  was  evident  that  they  were  doing  what 
they  were  not  willing  to  do. 

Word  of  what  had  taken  place  reached  Washington  and 
he  at  once  resolved  upon  drastic  measures.  There  had  been 
too  much  insubordination  and  it  was  time,  if  the  army  was 
to  be  kept  together,  that  energetic  steps  should  be  taken  to 
make  it  plain  that  treason  would  not  be  tolerated  under  any 
circumstances.  Washington  despatched  General  Robert 
Howe  with  one  thousand  men ;  in  his  letter  of  instructions  to 
General  Howe  he  said : 

"The  object  of  your  detachment  is  to  compel  the  mutineers  to 
unconditional  submission ;  and  I  am  to  desire,  that  you  will  grant  no 
terms  while  they  are  with  arms  in  their  hands  in  a  state  of  resistance. 
If  you  succeed  in  compelling  the  revolted  troops  to  a  surrender,  you 
will  instantly  execute  a  few  of  the  most  active  and  incendiary  leaders." 

General  Howe  at  once  proceeded  to  execute  the  com- 
mission. He  had  serious  misgivings,  for  he  was  leading  men 
against  their  fellow  soldiers,  and  his  thousand  men  had  the 
same  grievances  which  had  driven  the  insurgents  to  extreme 
measures.  He  tested  the  loyalty  of  his  troops  in  various 
ways  and  was  satisfied  that  they  would  obey  orders.  He  left 
New  Windsor  with  his  troops  on  one  of  the  coldest  days  of 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  25 

the  year  and  arrived  at  Ringwood  on  Friday,  January  26. 
During  the  night  he  posted  his  men  close  to  the  camp  of  the 
insurgents  and  every  road  leading  from  it  was  carefully 
guarded.  The  demand  for  surrender  came  shortly  after  the 
break  of  day  and  it  was  a  rude  awakening  for  the  disaffected 
soldiers.  They  were  ordered  to  march  unarmed  into  an  ad- 
joining field.  Some  of  them  made  attempts  to  escape  but 
they  found  all  avenues  cut  off.  Finally  they  yielded  and 
immediately  afterwards  they  told  the  story  of  their  doings 
to  a  court  martial,  "standing  in  the  snow,"  as  the  record 
reads.  Sergeant-Major  Grant,  Sergeant  David  Gillmore 
and  Private  John  Tuttle  were  convicted  of  having  been  the 
ringleaders  in  the  rebellion  and  sentenced  to  death.  Grant 
was  pardoned,  because  it  was  shown  that  he  had  unwillingly 
assumed  the  command ;  the  other  two  were  at  once  shot,  the 
bullets  which  ended  their  existence  speeding  from  rifles  in 
the  hands  of  some  of  their  fellow  conspirators.  Two  mounds 
of  stones  mark  the  graves  of  the  fallen ;  these  mounds  may 
still  be  seen  on  an  elevation  in  the  mountains  overlooking 
the  raih-oad  station  at  Pompton  Lakes.  A  guard  sufficient 
to  protect  the  stores  at  Ringwood  and  Pompton  was  left 
behind;  the  rest  of  the  army,  including  the  men  who  had 
rebelled,  marched  south  on  their  way  to  Yorktown. 

CHANGES  OF  SCENE  AT  POMPTON. 

There  was  a  wholly  different  scene  of  military  activity 
at  Pompton  during  the  latter  days  of  August  of  that  same 
year.  The  French  general,  the  Count  de  Rochambeau,  had 
crossed  the  Hudson  at  Stony  Point  and  reached  Pompton 
on  the  25th.  Instead  of  half-starved  and  rag-clad  soldiers 
the  natives  beheld  the  flower  of  the  French  army  officered 
by  some  of  the  greatest  noblemen  of  France.  Fully  equipped 
and  with  an  abundance  of  ammunition  they  passed  through 
Pompton  and  thence  to  Whippany  on  their  way  south  to 
he  present  at  the  surrender  at  Yorktown. 


26  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

Another  and  a  still  different  scene  was  presented  at 
Pompton  in  December.  It  was  a  part  of  the  same  army- 
returning  victorious  from  Yorktown;  the  soldiers  were  a 
little  bedraggled  and  their  uniforms  a  little  the  worse  for 
wear,  but  the  spirit  of  victory  accomplished  had  taken  the 
place  of  the  grim  determination  of  soldiers  about  going  to 
battle.  The  commander  of  the  regiment  that  passed  through 
Pompton  was  de  Chastellux,  who  had  risen  to  the  dignity  of 
Major-General. 

On  July  12,  1782,  Washington  passed  through  Pompton 
with  a  part  of  his  army  on  his  way  from  the  Hudson  to 
Philadelphia,  to  meet  Rochambeau.  But  Washington  had 
not  yet  seen  the  last  of  what  is  now  the  territory  of  Passaic 
county,  for  he  rode  from  Newburg  to  Ringwood  in  April, 
1783,  for  the  purpose  of  meeting  the  Secretary  of  War  to 
make  arrangements  for  the  release  of  prisoners.  On  August 
18,  1783,  Washington,  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Washington, 
left  his  headquarters  at  Newburg  for  Rocky  Hill,  N.  J., 
where  he  issued  his  farewell  address  to  his  army  on  Novem- 
ber 2,  and  the  probability  is  that  he  passed  through  Pomp- 
ton. 

Just  how  many  men  from  Paterson  fought  in  the  Revo- 
lutionary army  cannot  be  ascertained,  for  in  those  days  the 
records  were  not  kept  with  the  particularity  of  the  present 
day.  There  were  many  of  them,  and  many  were  heroes 
whose  deeds  of  valor  and  of  suffering  have  never  been  told 
or  have  been  long  since  forgotten.  But  there  were  some 
whose  prominence  in  those  days  of  great  opportunities  at- 
tracted more  than  passing  attention.  The  most  prominent, 
so  far  as  Paterson  is  concerned,  were  the  patriotic  Godwins. 

A  FAMILY  or  HEROES. 

Abraham  Godwin,  whose  father  came  to  this  country 
from  England  in  1720,  was  born  in  New  York  city  on  No- 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  27 

vember  23,  1724,  and  there,  on  May  9,  1747,  he  married 
Phebe  Cool,  whose  father  had  come  to  this  country  from 
Holland  in  1722.  He  was  employed  as  a  carpenter  in  New 
York  but  some  eight  years  after  his  marriage  determined  to 
leave  and  establish  a  home  for  himself  in  what  was  at  that 
time  a  wilderness.  Among  the  places  he  visited  was  one 
called  Totowa  by  the  Indians ;  the  latter  were  very  friendly 
and,  in  fact,  seemed  anxious  to  have  Godwin  come  and  live 
among  them.  He  returned  to  New  York  and  made  known 
his  intention  of  going  to  New  Jersey  to  live.  He  was  at 
that  time  employed  by  the  Dey  family  and  they  were  re- 
luctant to  part  with  so  good  a  carpenter.  So  they  ofifered  to 
give  him  the  south  side  of  Dey  street,  from  Broadway  to 
the  Hudson  river,  if  he  would  work  for  them  to  the  extent 
of  six  hundred  pounds.  But  Godwin  had  seen  New  Jersey 
and,  like  so  many  others  since,  liked  it  better  than  New 
York.  He  erected  a  house  for  himself  on  what  is  now  the 
southeast  comer  of  River  and  Bank  streets  and  he  removed 
thither  with  his  family.  The  Ringwood  company  had  begun 
operations  in  the  upper  part  of  the  county  and  they  were 
compelled  to  cart  their  product,  iron,  over  bad  roads  to  a 
place  on  the  river  near  Passaic;  their  men  found  Godwin's 
house  a  very  convenient  place  to  stop  at;  in  this  way 
Godwin  became  acquainted  with  the  managers  of  the  com- 
pany and  he  was  soon  appointed  their  agent  to  purchase 
goods  for  them  in  New  York  and  bring  these  goods  to  Pater- 
son,  from  whence  they  could  be  carted  to  Ringwood.  That 
he  kept  on  good  terms  with  the  Indians  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  the  Indians  were  in  the  habit  of  sending  some  of 
their  warriors  to  his  house  to  look  after  the  safety  of  the 
occupants  while  Godwin  was  away  on  his  trips  to  New 
York.  After  the  Indians  had  gone  Godwin  changed  his 
house  into  a  tavern  and  for  some  years  did  a  thriving  busi- 
ness, for  the  population  of  the  neighborhood  was  ever  in- 


28  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

creasing  and  there  were  many  sightseers  from  New  York 
attracted  by  the  Falls.  But  he  was  not  permitted  to  retain 
the  monopoly,  for  in  1774  James  Leslie  opened  a  tavern  at 
what  is  now  the  southwest  corner  of  Redwoods  and  Totowa 
avenues.  This  induced  Mr.  Godwin  to  erect  a  more  pre- 
tentious building  for  his  tavern,  a  building,  subsequently 
enlarged,  which  was  known  for  many  years  as  the  Passaic 
Hotel.  In  the  New  York  Gazette,  September  5,  1774,  he 
announced : 

"The  subscriber  Las  built  a  new  and  very  commodious  house  for 
tavernkeeping,  about  two  hundred  yards  from  his  late  dwelling  house, 
at  the  foot  of  the  bridge,  on  the  King's  highway  to  Newark,  and  intends 
God  willing,  to  leave  all  business  as  shopkeeping  and  farming,  and 
apply  himself  solely  to  tavernkeeping,  and  to  keep  as  good  a  house  as 
the  counti'y  will  afford,  viz..  Eating,  drinking  and  lodging,  with  the  best 
accommodation  for  horses.  All  gentlemen  and  ladies  who  will  please 
favor  him  with  their  company,  may  depend  upon  the  best  and  genteelest 
treatment.  Should  it  appear  too  great  a  distance  from  his  house  to  the 
Falls,  any  gentlemen  or  ladies  who  chuse  to  go  there  shall  be  supplied 
with  horses  gratis.  A  convenient  room  for  dancing,  and  a  fiddler,  will 
always  be  ready  for  the  service  of  ladies  &  gentlemen  who  may  require 
it.  Also  a  guide  to  attend  any  strangers,  who  shall  show  them  all  the 
natural  curiosities  at  the  Falls." 

Godwin  built  a  number  of  houses,  principally  along 
Broadway,  as  high  up  as  Carroll  street,  and  was  in  a  fair  way 
to  become  a  man  of  wealth  when  the  shadows  of  the  Revo- 
lution began  to  appear.  He  also  erected  a  building  on  the 
opposite  side  of  the  river,  which  he  used  for  some  years  as 
a  store  house  and  subsequently  as  a  tavern.  He  was  one  of 
the  first  to  espouse  the  cause  of  liberty.  He  had  a  com- 
mission from  the  king  of  England  as  a  captain  of  a  company 
of  horse;  as  he  did  not  approve  of  the  conduct  of  George  III. 
towards  the  American  colonies  he  resigned  his  commission 
and  disbanded  the  company.  This  was  a  signal  for  a  begin- 
ning of  bitter  enmity  on  the  part  of  those  who  remained 
loyal  to  Great  Britain.  These  did  all  they  possibly  could 
to  annoy  and  injure  Godwin  and  he  soon  found  himself 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  29 

compelled  to  sell  a  great  deal  of  his  real  estate  at  prices  much 
lower  than  he  considered  its  true  value. 

He  was  one  of  the  first  to  enlist  and  he  soon  rose  to  the 
rank  of  captain  of  marines  on  board  the  Lady  Washington 
in  the  harbor  of  New  York.  He  was  wounded,  slightly  it  was 
at  first  supposed,  in  an  engagement  at  the  Highlands  of  New 
Jersey,  but  he  returned  to  his  ship.  Here  he  received  pain- 
ful news  from  home.  Marauding  bands  of  English  and 
Hessians  had  taken  possession  of  his  house,  destroyed  his 
furniture  and  put  his  family  in  sore  straits.  He  begged  his 
commanding  officer  for  a  hundred  men  with  the  intention 
of  punishing  the  marauders,  but  this  was  refused.  His 
wound  began  to  give  more  trouble  and,  with  worried  spirit 
and  intense  physical  suffering,  he  expired  on  February  9, 
1777.  His  remains  were  interred  with  all  military  honors 
at  Fishkill,  N.  Y. 

Henry  Godwin,  oldest  son  of  Abraham  Godwin,  was 
born  February  25,  1751.  He  left  Paterson  early  in  life  and 
was  practicing  law  near  Fishkill,  N.  Y.,  in  1775,  when  he 
enlisted  in  the  Revolutionary  army.  He  rose  to  be  captain 
of  the  Fifth  New  York  regiment,  which  was  captured  by  the 
British  at  the  surrender  of  Fort  Montgomery,  October  6, 
1777.  For  three  years  he  was  kept  prisoner  aboard  a  ship 
and  then  for  six  months  was  on  parole  on  Long  Island,  after 
which  he  was  exchanged.  He  returned  to  his  home  in  New 
York  where  he  died  shortly  after,  his  death  being  caused 
by  privations  endured  while  he  was  a  prisoner.  His  remains 
were  interred  next  to  those  of  his  father. 

Abraham  Godwin,  bom  July  16,  1763,  was  a  little  more 
than  thirteen  years  old,  when  he  joined  his  brother's  com- 
pany in  the  Fifth  New  York  regiment  as  fife  major.  With 
him  came  another  brother,  David,  born  March  5,  1766, 
who  was  the  regimental  drummer.  The  two  boys  served 
throughout  the  war.    Abraham  returned  to  Paterson  and 


30  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

soon  after  sold  the  property  he  had  obtained  in  the  state 
of  New  York  for  his  services  in  the  army,  using  the  money 
thus  obtained  in  repurchasing  his  father's  tavern  which  had 
been  sold  by  creditors  during  the  days  of  the  war.  David 
was  employed  as  a  carpenter  for  a  number  of  years  in  Pat- 
erson,  after  which  he  removed  to  Rhinebeck,  N.  Y.,  where 
he  died. 

THE  ROMANCE  OF  THE  RINGWOOD  MINES. 

Robert  Erskine  was  sent  to  this  country  by  the  London 
Company  to  look  after  their  mining  interests  in  what  is  now 
the  upper  part  of  Passaic  county.  Iron  had  been  found  in 
the  mountains  there  many  years  before  and  iron  was  what 
was  wanted  not  only  in  this  country  but  in  Europe.  Iron 
miners  came  from  afar  and  near,  bought  lands  from  the 
Indians  and  began  digging  for  ore.  But  it  was  not  until 
1740  that  this  work  was  done  on  a  large  scale,  for  in  that 
year  the  Ringwood  Company  was  formed.  The  company 
worked  the  mines  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  then 
sold  out  to  the  London  Company,  an  organization  with  a 
peculiar  history.  Peter  Hasenclever  was  bom  in  Germany, 
but  he  had  lived  for  many  years  in  Portugal.  He  was  in- 
terested in  the  doings  in  this  country  and  he  thought  he 
saw  a  way  in  which  he  could  make  a  great  deal  of  money. 
There  was  iron  in  America,  and  Portugal  wanted  iron; 
Portugal  made  beads,  toys  and  other  such  things  as  the 
Indians  in  the  West  Indies  would  like  to  have;  there  was 
a  great  deal  of  fine  fruit  in  the  West  Indies,  just  the  kind 
the  people  in  New  York  would  be  willing  to  give  money 
for.  So  a  number  of  vessels  might  sail  from  Portugal  to  the 
West  Indies  and  from  there  to  New  York  and  make  money 
in  each  place,  toys  from  Portugal,  fruits  from  the  West 
Indies  and  iron  from  New  York.  But  Hasenclever  could  not 
make  the  Portuguese  see  things  that  way  and  so  he  went 


THE   WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  31 

to  London  where  he  found  people  willing  enough  to  risk 
their  money  with  him.  But  he  could  not  find  miners  willing 
to  take  their  chances  in  the  new  country.  So  he  went  back 
to  where  he  had  been  born  and  there  he  had  no  trouble  in 
inducing  a  number  of  miners  to  go  with  him.  With  the  cash 
he  had  received  in  London  he  bought  out  the  Ringwood 
Company,  But  Hasenclever  found  that  he  could  not  make 
any  money  out  of  his  scheme  and  so  the  English,  whose 
money  he  was  spending,  brought  him  back  and  put  John 
Jacob  Faesch  in  his  place.  Faesch  did  not  do  much  better 
and  his  place  was  taken  by  Erskine.  He  had  about  six 
hundred  men  working  for  him,  nearly  all  in  the  mines,  and 
he  was  making  money  for  those  who  employed  him,  when 
the  Revolutionary  war  broke  out.  He  at  once  espoused 
the  cause  of  this  country  and  organized  the  workmen  in  his 
employ  into  a  company,  the  services  of  which  he  offered  to 
Washington,  making  a  stipulation,  however,  that  the  men 
should  not  be  drafted  into  other  regiments;  he  wanted  to 
keep  his  men  together,  so  that  in  the  event  of  a  cessation 
of  hostilities,  they  could  all  return  to  Ringwood.  He  became 
an  intimate  friend  of  Washington  and  was  commissioned 
Geographer  and  Surveyor-General  of  the  American  forces. 
On  the  road  leading  from  the  Hewitt  residence  to  the  com- 
pany's store  there  may  be  seen  today  two  tombs,  mounds 
built  of  brick,  on  which  rest  two  slabs.  One  of  these  slabs 
indicates  that  beneath  lie  buried  the  remains  of  "Robert 
Erskine,  F.  R.  S.,  Geographer  and  Surveyor-General  to  the 
Army  of  the  United  States,  Son  of  Ralph  Erskine,  late 
minister  at  Dunfermline,  in  Scotland.  Born  September  7th, 
1735.  Died  October  2d,  1780.  Aged  45  Years  and  25 
Days."  The  inscription  on  the  other  slab  reads:  "In  Mem- 
ory of  Robert  Monteith,  Clark  to  Robert  Erskine,  Esq. 
Born  at  Dunblaine  in  Scotland.  Died  December  2,  1778, 
Aged  33  Years." 


32  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

THE  CAPTAIN  OF  THE  GUARD. 

One  of  the  most  picturesque  figures  on  the  streets  of 
early  Paterson,  a  man  who  was  always  in  demand  when 
there  was  any  activity  in  military  afifairs,  was  that  of  Briga- 
dier-General William  Colfax,  a  resident  for  many  years  of 
Pompton,  but  a  frequent  visitor  in  Paterson.  He  was  born 
in  New  London,  Conn.,  July  3,  1756,  and  took  part  in  the 
famous  battle  of  Bunker  Hill.  He  was  subsequently  trans- 
ferred to  a  Connecticut  regiment.  He  was  at  Valley  Forge 
when  Washington,  on  March  17,  1778,  issued  an  order  that 
"one  hundred  men  are  to  be  annexed  to  the  Guard  of  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  for  the  purpose  of  forming  a  corps, 
to  be  instructed  in  the  maneuvres  necessary  to  be  intro- 
duced into  the  army,  and  to  serve  as  a  model  for  the  execu- 
tion of  them."  Birth  in  this  country  was  a  requisite  for 
enlistment  in  this  Guard  and  the  motto  selected  was  "Con- 
quer or  Die."  According  to  the  order  the  guards  were  to  be 
from  five  feet  eight  inches  to  five  feet  ten  inches  in  height, 
between  twenty  and  thirty  years  of  age,  of  "robust  consti- 
tution, well-limbed,  formed  for  activity,  and  men  of  estab- 
lished character  for  sobriety  and  fidelity."  In  this  guard 
Colfax  was  lieutenant  and  subsequently  captain  comman- 
dant, succeeding  Captain  Caleb  Gibbs,  of  Rhode  Island. 

Captain  Colfax  was  wounded  three  times.  On  the  first 
occasion,  as  he  was  about  to  give  a  word  of  command,  a 
bullet  struck  his  uplifted  sword  and,  glancing  down  the 
blade,  injured  his  hand.  Shortly  after  a  bullet  passed 
through  his  right  forearm,  between  the  bones,  but  doing  no 
injury  to  them.  On  the  third  occasion  the  captain  was  on 
horseback  when  a  bullet  went  through  his  body,  between  the 
abdomen  and  the  hip.  In  the  excitement  of  the  battle  he 
paid  no  attention  to  the  wound  until  some  soldiers  saw 
blood  issuing  from  his  boot.  He  rode  to  the  field  hospital, 
where  the  wound  was  found  to  he  more  serious  than  had 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  33 

been  at  first  apprehended.  He  lay  sick  for  some  time  in  the 
hospital,  but  when  General  Washington  offered  him  a  fur- 
lough, that  he  might  go  home  until  fully  recovered,  he  de- 
clined it,  preferring  to  remain  with  the  army.  Some  time 
afterwards,  while  the  army  was  in  winter  quarters  at  Mor- 
ristown,  he  accepted  the  furlough  and  rode  on  horseback  all 
the  way  to  his  home  in  Connecticut.  He  returned  very 
much  improved  in  health  and  remained  with  the  army  until 
the  close  of  the  war. 

At  the  surrender  of  Cornwallis  Captain  Colfax  occu- 
pied a  prominent  position  near  Washington  and  Rocham- 
beau,  havmg  been  placed  there  by  the  orders  of  Washing- 
ton. It  is  but  natural  that  in  after  years  he  should  have 
been  fond  of  detailing  that  momentous  scene.  He  said  that 
the  surrender  took  place  while  the  band  was  playing  "Yan- 
kee Doodle."  Cornwallis  kept  away  on  the  plea  of  not 
feeling  well,  and  sent  General  O'Hara  to  tender  the  sword 
of  surrender.  The  American  and  French  armies  were  drawa 
up,  facing  each  other,  Washington  at  the  head  of  one  and 
Rochambeau  at  the  head  of  the  other.  General  O'Hara  did 
not  fancy  the  task  assigned  to  him;  he  hesitated  between 
tendering  the  sword  to  the  general  commanding  the  rebel- 
lious  subjects  of  his  king  or  tendering  it  to  the  general  of  a 
nation  with  which  England  had  had  so  many  bloody  wars. 
But  he  apparently  concluded  that  it  would  be  less  difficult 
to  surrender  to  a  Frenchman.  So  he  seized  the  sword  by 
the  blade  and  presented  the  hilt  to  the  French  general, 
when  the  latter  exclaimed,  "Me  no  Washington ;  me  Roch- 
ambeau," just  as  if  that  bit  of  information  were  at  all 
necessary.  O'Hara  then  turned  to  Washington  and  com- 
pleted the  surrender. 

That  Captain  Colfax  was  a  favorite  of  General  Wash- 
ington and  also  of  Mrs.  Washington  is  evident  from  two 
keepsakes  still  in  possession  of  the  Colfax  family.    One  of. 


34  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

them  is  an  old  flint-lock  pistol,  presented  by  Washington  to 
Colfax;  there  were  two  of  them  when  the  presentation  was 
made,  but  one  was  lost  some  years  ago.  The  pistol  is  ten 
inches  long,  the  stock  ornamented  with  silver  filagree  work, 
and  apparently  made  in  Holland,  judging  from  the  inscrip- 
tion, "Thone,  Amsterdam."  The  other  keepsake  is  a  net, 
used  to  confine  the  hair  when  men  wore  their  hair  in  cues; 
it  was  worn  for  many  years  by  the  Captain  of  the  Com- 
mander's Guard.  It  is  made  of  linen  and  was  knitted  by 
the  hands  of  Mrs.  Washington  and  by  her  presented  to 
Colfax. 

Many  people  who  have  not  passed  far  beyond  the 
meridian  of  life  still  remember  the  old  house,  with  the  roof 
sloping  almost  to  the  ground  in  the  rear,  which  stood  on  the 
road  above  Pompton,  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  where 
the  road  to  Wanaque  and  Greenwood  Lake  branches  from 
the  main  road.  In  Revolutionary  days  this  house  was  the 
scene  of  many  social  festivities,  in  which  Washington  and 
his  soldiers  took  part.  It  was  occupied  by  the  family  of 
Jasper  Schuyler,  a  most  attractive  member  of  which  evi- 
dently was  the  daughter,  Hester.  Although  she  was  kind 
and  pleasant  to  all  the  military  men  who  sought  hospitality 
and  entertainment  beneath  her  father's  roof,  she  showed 
a  marked  preference  to  the  gallant  soldier  who  commanded 
the  Guard  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  That  this  friend- 
ship developed  into  a  sentiment  stronger  than  mere  liking 
is  evident  from  the  fact  that  immediately  after  the  war 
Captain  Colfax  repaired  to  Pompton  and  there,  on  August 
27,  1783,  he  married  Hester  Schuyler. 

Fifty-five  years  and  a  little  over  after  this  date  the 
remains  of  William  Colfax,  dressed  in  his  uniform  as  Briga- 
dier-General, were  laid  in  the  family  burial  plot  and  there 
may  be  seen  today  the  shaft  which  marks  his  last  resting- 
place.    Those  fifty-five  years  were  filled  with  toil,  ease  and 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  35 

honor  for  the  most  prominent  Revolutionary  character  of 
what  is  now  Passaic  county — toil  being  his  share  as  a  farmer, 
ease  his  share  when  he  had  accumulated  enough  of  this 
world's  goods  to  render  him-  independent,  and  honor  his 
share  as  justice  of  the  peace,  judge  of  the  Court  of  Common 
Pleas,  assemblyman  and  Brigadier-General  of  the  Second 
Division  of  Infantry  of  Bergen  county.  Only  once  were  the 
peaceful  pursuits  interrupted  during  all  these  years;  in  1812 
there  was  another  war  with  England  and  Brigadier-General 
Colfax  had  a  command  at  Sandy  Hook.  He  remained  in 
the  service  of  his  country  until  peace  was  again  declared  and 
then  returned  to  Pompton  and  his  family.  In  1824  he  was 
among  those  who  took  part  in  the  welcome  to  Lafayette 
on  that  general's  return  visit  to  this  country;  he  led  the 
local  military  in  the  great  parade  in  Newark  and  accompa- 
nied the  French  general  to  Hackensack,  then  along  the 
Goffle  towards  Paterson  and  he  saw  the  agitation  of  the 
visitor  there  when  he  noticed  the  rude  memorial,  only  a 
plain  board  with  a  suitable  inscription,  placed  there  by 
some  of  his  former  soldiers,  which  indicated  the  spot  where 
Lafayette's  tent  had  stood  during  the  dark  days  of  the 
Revolution ;  he  led  the  march  through  the  streets  of  Pater- 
son and  partook  of  the  banquet  tendered  to  the  French 
general  by  the  grateful  and  patriotic  citizens  of  Paterson. 

Brigadier-General  Colfax  died  September  9,  1838,  aged 
eighty-two  years  and  two  months.  His  body  was  escorted 
to  the  grave  by  the  military  of  Paterson;  the  old  Dutch 
Reformed  church  at  Pompton  never  held  a  larger  sorrowing 
multitude  than  listened  to  the  funeral  oration  delivered  by 
the  Rev.  Isaac  S.  Demarest. 

A  HERO  FROM  PASSAIC  PARK. 

There  was  still  another  resident  of  Passaic  county  who 
attained  eminence  during  the  Revolution.    His  name  was 


86  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

Daniel  Niel  and  in  early  life  he  was  a  merchant  in  New 
York  city.  He  removed  to  Acquackanonk  about  1773  and 
kept  a  store  where  the  park  is  now  located  at  Passaic  Bridge. 
At  the  outbreak  of  the  war  those  of  his  neighbors  who  still 
remained  loyal  to  England  made  life  as  unpleasant  for  him 
as  possible  and  he  sustained  severe  pecuniary  losses.  He 
joined  an  Essex  county  regiment  in  July,  1775,  and  became 
adjutant;  he  was  transferred  to  the  artillery  and  as  captain- 
lieutenant  of  such,  at  the  head  of  his  corps,  he  was  killed, 
January  3,  1777,  at  the  battle  of  Princeton. 

REMAINED  LOYAL  TO  ENGLAND. 

But  all  the  people  who  lived  hereabouts  in  1775  were 
not  anxious  to  see  this  a  free  country ;  there  were  some  who 
preferred  loyalty  to  the  home  country  to  freedom  in  their 
new  homes,  but  it  is  pleasant  to  record  that  there  were  not 
many  of  them.  Two,  who  were  the  most  prominent,  were 
Robert  Drummond  and  Joseph  Ryerson.  Drummond  was 
a  wealthy  merchant  and  ship-owner  at  Acquakanonk  Land- 
ing. When  trouble  between  this  country  and  England  first 
became  apparent,  his  thoughts  and  counsel  were  with  the 
American  cause;  he  was  a  member  of  the  Provincial  Con- 
gress and  its  speaker  for  two  terms,  but  when  war  broke  out 
he  tendered  his  services  to  his  king  and  organized  the 
Second  Battalion  of  New  Jersey  Volunteers  and  was  com- 
missioned its  major.  He  enlisted  about  two  hundred  men, 
principally  from  the  Bergen  county  side  of  the  river.  He 
saw  service  in  the  South,  where  most  of  his  men  fell  victims 
to  disease  consequent  upon  the  climate.  After  the  war  he 
removed  to  England,  where  he  died  in  1789.  As  a  reward 
for  his  services  he  received  a  pension,  and  also  a  farm  in 
Nova  Scotia;  his  brother,  David,  espoused  the  cause  of  this 
country  and  his  reward  was  a  farm  in  New  York  state. 

Joseph  Ryerson  was  bom  at  Pequannock,  February  28, 
1761.    He  entered  the  army  as  a  cadet  when  he  was  only 


THE  WAR  FOR  INDEPENDENCE  37 

fifteen  years  of  age  and  rose  to  the  lieutenancy  in  the  Prince 
of  Wales's  regiment;  as  such  he  distinguished  himself  at 
Charleston.  His  reward  was  a  tract  of  land  in  Ontario.  He 
and  his  three  sons  saw  service  in  the  war  of  1812,  after 
which  he  returned  to  Ontario,  where  he  died  August  9, 
1854. 


The  Early  White  Settlers. 


The  Early  White  Settlers 


The  land  at  present  occupied  by  the  city  of  Paterson, 
and  a  great  deal  of  land  on  all  sides  of  it,  belonged  to  the 
Indians  until  March  28,  1679,  for  on  that  date  the  following 
deed  was  given : 

Know  all  men  by  these  Presents  that  I  Captahem  Indian  Sachem 
and  Chief,  Owner  of  a  certain  tract  of  Laud  Lying  and  being  upon 
Pisawyck  River  knowne  by  the  name  of  Haquequenunck,  Have  for  my 
Selfe  my  Heires  and  Assignes,  in  the  Presence  and  by  the  aprobation 
and  consent  of  Memiserean,  Mindawas,  Ghonnajea,  Indians  and  Sachems 
of  the  said  Contry,  for  an  In  Consideration  of  a  certain  Prcel  of  goods, 
Blankets,  kettles  powder  and  other  Goods  to  my  Content  and  Satisfac- 
tion In  hand  paid,  by  Hans  Dederick,  Gerret  Garretson,  Walling 
Jacobs  and  Hendrick  George,  The  Receipt  whereof  I  do  hereby  acknowl- 
edge to  have  received  to  my  Content  and  Satisfaction  given,  alienated 
bargained  and  sold  unto  the  said  Hans  Dedericks,  Gerrit  Gerritsen, 
Walling  Jacobs,  Hendrick  George  and  their  Associates  all  and  singular 
the  abovementioned  tract  of  land  and  the  meadows  adjoining  beginning 
from  the  northernmost  bounds  of  the  Towne  of  Newark  from  the  Lower- 
most part  thereof  to  the  uppermost  as  fare  as  the  steep  Rocks  or 
Mountaines,  and  from  thence  to  the  Run  all  along  the  said 

Pisawick  River  to  the  White  Oak  Tree  standing  neere  the  said  River 
on  the  north  side  of  a  small  brook,  and  from  thence  up  to 

the  steep  Rocks  or  Mountains,  Which  said  tree  was  marked  by  the  said 
Captaham  In  the  prsence  of  La  Prairie  Surveyor-General. 

This  deed  was  given  by  the  Lenni  Lenape,  a  tribe  of 
aborigines  who  roamed  all  over  New  Jersey,  and  the  deed 
was  good  enough  as  far  as  it  went,  but  Indian  deeds  never 
went  very  far,  as  the  purchasers  mentioned  in  the  deed 
soon  ascertained  to  be  the  case  in  this  particular  instance. 
King  Charles  II.  of  England  had  made  a  present  in  1664  to 
his  brother,  James,  Duke  of  York,  afterwards  King  James 
II.,  of  all  the  land  now  comprised  in  New  England,  New 
York  and  New  Jersey,  and  the  Duke  of  York  had  given  title 


42  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

to  New  Jersey  to  two  of  his  friends  and  from  these  the  Lords 
Proprietors,  there  were  twenty-four  of  them,  obtained  the 
whole  of  New  Jersey.  So  the  men  who  had  bought  the 
lands  from  the  Indians  associated  themselves  with  several 
others,  and  on  March  16,  1684,  the  land  passed  from  the 
Lords  Proprietors  into  the  possession  of  "Hans  Didericke, 
Garrett  Garretson,  Walling  Jacobs,  Elias  Machielson,  Hart- 
man  Machielson,  Johannes  Machielson,  Cornelius  Machiel- 
son, Adrian  Post,  Uriah  Tomason,  Cornelius  Rowlafson, 
Symon  Jacobs,  John  Hendrick  Speare,  Cornelius  Lubbers, 
and  Abraham  Bookey,"  for  fifty  pounds  cash  down,  fourteen 
pounds  a  year  and  one  half  of  all  the  gold  and  silver  that 
might  be  mined  on  the  property.  The  sale  of  this  land  is 
generally  referred  to  as  the  Acquakanonk  patent.  The  deed 
conveyed  about  4,000  of  the  5,357  acres  in  Paterson,  all  of 
the  city,  excepting  the  First  and  Second  wards  and  a  portion 
of  the  Seventh  ward. 

DIVIDING  THE  TRACT. 

If  the  fourteen  owners  of  the  newly-acquired  property 
had  divided  it  up  into  equal  shares,  every  one  of  them 
would  have  had  more  real  estate  than  he  would  have  known 
what  to  do  with ;  accordingly  each  took  a  hundred  acre  lot, 
the  rest  being  held  in  common,  until  the  increase  in  popula- 
tion called  for  another  division.  After  the  second  parcel  of 
fourteen  lots  had  been  distributed,  the  owners  laid  out  four- 
teen lots  along  the  river  and  called  these  lots  Goutum,  after 
a  village  in  North  Holland,  a  name  subsequently  corrupted 
into  Gotham.  The  next  parcelling,  about  1701,  divided  up 
the  property  running  along  the  river  from  near  where  the 
New  York,  Susquehanna  &  Western  railroad  crosses  the 
river  near  Dundee  Lake  to  Garret  Mountain  above  the 
Falls. 

A  division  made  in  1714,  however,  is  of  more  interest 
to  the  people  of  Paterson.     The  owners  of  the  property 


THE  EARLY  WHITE  SETTLERS  43 

drew  a  straight  line  on  a  piece  of  paper,  the  beginning  of 
a  map  made  with  pen  and  ink ;  the  straight  line  is  now  East 
Eighteenth  street,  although  for  many  years  it  was  called 
York  avenue.  Then  they  divided  up  the  property  lying 
on  both  sides  of  this  line,  thirteen  plots  on  one  side  and 
fifteen  on  the  other.  This  map  is  reproduced  on  the  next 
page.  In  order  that  the  lettering  may  be  understood  by 
people  of  the  present  day,  accustomed  to  a  different  kind  of 
writing,  the  following  explanation  will  be  of  assistance: 

On  the  east  side  of  the  dividing  line  Lot  No.  1  belonged 
to  Frans  (Francis)  Post,  being  south  of  People's  Park, 
No.  2  to  Hessel  Pieterse,  No.  3  to  Abram  Van  Riper,  No.  4 
to  Elias  Vreeland,  No.  5  to  Arie  (Adrian)  Post,  No.  6  to 
John  Van  Blarcom,  his  northerly  line  being  the  present 
Park  avenue.  No.  7  to  Simeon  Van  Winkle,  extending  to 
Thirteenth  avenue  on  the  north  and  the  river  on  the  east, 
No.  8  to  Magiel  (Michael)  Vreeland,  No.  9  to  Simeon  Van 
Winkle,  between  Twelfth  avenue  and  the  river.  No.  10  to 
Abram  Van  Riper,  No.  11  to  Henderic  (Henry)  Spier,  No. 
12  to  Michael  Vreeland,  No.  13  to  John  Bradberry,  No.  14 
to  Henderic  Garretse  (Henry  Garrison),  at  Riverside,  No.  15 
to  Michael  Vreeland.  On  the  west  side  of  the  dividing  line 
No.  1,  near  the  Passaic  Rolling  Mill,  belonged  to  Michael 
Vreeland,  No.  2  to  Elias  Vreeland,  No.  3  to  Henry  Post,  No. 
4  to  Jacobus  Post,  No.  5  to  Hessel  Pieterse  and  Gerrit  Van 
Wagenen,  No.  6  to  John  Van  Blarcom,  No.  7  to  Abram 
Thomasse,  No.  8  to  Henderic  Spier,  Nos.  9  and  10  to  Derrick 
(Richard)  Van  Houten,  Nos.  11  and  12  to  Adrian  Post  and 
No.  13  to  Comelis  Garritse  (Cornelius  Garrison). 

When  it  came  to  dividing  up  what  is  now  known  as  the 
over-the-river  section  of  Paterson  the  early  settlers  again 
had  recourse  to  paper  and  ink  and  a  crude  attempt  at  mak- 
ing a  map.  Property  including  Garret  mountain  and  the 
territory  lying  along  the  river  as  far  up  as  the  Peckamin 


Nearrisi  Ave. 


PuvV    CtvA 


8«  7th  and 


7*0^    Cuv^ 


II. 

ell 
53i 


gtdi 


46  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

river  was  purchased  because  it  was  feared  that  timber  would 
soon  be  scarce  in  Paterson.  The  property  belonged  to  Peter 
Sonmans,  a  son  of  one  of  the  East  Jersey  Proprietors,  and 
he  sold  it,  November  27,  1711,  to  Frans  Post,  Harmanus 
Gerritse,  Thomas  Juriantse,  Christopher  Steenmetz,  Cornelis 
Doremus,  Peter  Poulusse  and  Hessel  Pieterse,  for  six  hun- 
dred and  sixty  pounds.  It  was  customary  in  those  days  for 
purchasers  of  property  to  pay  an  annual  rent  in  addition 
to  the  purchase  price;  in  this  case  the  price  paid  was  con- 
sidered so  large  that  the  annual  quit-rent  was  made  as 
small  as  possible  and  so  it  was  fixed  at  one  peppercorn  a 
year. 

BUYING  LAND  FROM  THE  INDIANS. 

The  early  settlers,  especially  in  the  northern  part  of 
New  Jersey,  were  honest  in  their  dealings  with  the  Indians. 
The  right  of  the  red  man  to  the  soil  was  recognized,  despite 
deeds  given  by  the  Lords  Proprietors  and  this  right  con- 
tinued to  be  recognized  long  after  the  Revolution.  Little  by 
little  the  Indians  sold  their  lands  to  the  white  settlers  and 
went  to  the  western  country,  many  from  New  Jersey  going 
to  Green  Bay,  Wisconsin.  The  few  Indians  that  were  left 
were  anxious  to  join  their  people  in  the  West  and  so  in 
1822  the  state  of  New  Jersey  made  a  bargain  with  the  Indi- 
ans by  which  the  latter  received  $3,551.23  in  return  for  the 
last  piece  of  land  not  then  owned  by  the  white  settlers. 
The  Indians  used  this  money  in  going  West  and  in  buying 
land  there.  Ten  years  later  they  remembered  that  they 
still  had  the  right  to  hunt  and  fish  in  New  Jersey,  for  when- 
ever they  had  sold  land  it  was  agreed  that  they  should  be 
permitted  to  continue  hunting  and  fishing.  There  were 
only  forty  New  Jersey  Indians  left  at  Green  Bay  and  these 
thought  New  Jersey  ought  to  pay  them  two  thousand  dollars 
and  they  would  call  everything  square.  Two  thousand  dol- 
lars looked  like  a  big  sum  to  these  Indians  but  they  received 


THE  EARLY  WHITE  SETTLERS  47 

it  promptly,  thus  ending  the  last  claim  they  had  to  land  and 
rights  in  New  Jersey.  They  wrote  a  letter  of  thanks  to 
New  Jersey,  in  which  they  said : 

Not  a  drop  of  our  blood  have  you  spilled  in  battle — not  an  acre 
of  land  have  you  taken  but  with  our  consent.  These  are  the  facts 
and  we  need  say  no  more.  We  wish  that  other  states  where  Indians 
still  live  would  do  as  New  Jersey  has  done.  Nothing  but  blessings  can 
fall  upon  her  from  the  lips  of  a  Lenni  Lenape. 

NAMES  THE  INDIANS  LEFT  US. 

A  number  of  places  near  Paterson  still  have  the  names 
given  to  them  by  the  Lenni  Lenape.  Among  these  are  the 
following : 

Acquackanonk.  This  word  is  made  up  the  Indian  ach- 
quoa-ni-can,  meaning  a  brush  net;  hanne,  a  rapid  stream; 
onk,  a  place,  and  so  it  means  a  place  in  a  rapid  stream  where 
fish  are  taken  with  a  brush  net.  As  in  numerous  other 
places  in  the  Passaic  river  the  Indians  had  built  a  V-shaped 
dam;  at  the  sharp  point  they  placed  a  lot  of  brush;  the 
fish  in  coming  down  the  stream  became  entangled  in  this 
brush  and  the  Indians  secured  them  by  suddenly  pulling  the 
brush  out  of  the  water.  Many  of  the  Dutch  settlers  called 
the  place  Slooterdam,  which  means  a  dam  with  a  gate  in  it. 
Others  tried  to  pronounce  it  the  way  the  Indians  did.  Now, 
the  Indian  was  not  very  plain  pronouncing  his  words;  in 
fact,  his  speech  sounded  as  if  his  tongue  were  thicker  than 
ours  or  as  if  he  always  had  several  pieces  of  chewing  gum 
in  his  mouth.  So  the  early  settlers  had  an  easy  time  of  it 
spelling  Acquackanonk,  for  they  could  spell  it  any  way  and 
none  could  say  they  were  wrong.  Glancing  over  the  early 
records  conveys  the  impression  that  the  early  settlers  tried 
to  spell  the  name  in  a  different  way  each  time  they  were 
called  upon  to  write  it.  Here  are  some  of  the  different 
spellings  found  in  ofl&cial  records:  1678 — Aquickenuncke, 
Haquicqueenock ;  1679 — Haquequenunck,  Aquegnonke; 
1680 — Hockquekanung;     1682 — Acqueyquinunke;     1683 — 


48  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

Aquaninoncke,  Hockquecanung;  1684 — Aquaquanuncke ; 
1685 — Aquickanuncke,  Haquequenunck ;  1692 — Acquica- 
nunck;  1693 — Acquiggenonck ;  Hockquickanon ;  1694 — 
Hackquickanon ;  1696 — Aqueckanonge;  Achquickenoungh, 
Acquachanongue,  Achquickanunk,  Hackquickenunk ;  1689 
— Aqueckkonunque,  Aquoechononque,  Achquikanuncque, 
Achquickenonk ;  1706 — Acquikanong ;  1707 — Hockquacka- 
nong,  Hockquackanonk ;  1714 — Achquegenonck ;  1736 — 
Haghquagenonck ;  1737 — Acquagkanonk.  In  later  years, 
when  people  were  too  busy  to  bother  with  so  many  letters, 
the  place  was  called  Quacknick. 

Campgaw,  or  Camp-Gaw,  as  it  is  frequently  spelled. 
Indian,  kaaka,  wild  goose,  and  gawi,  a  hedgehog,  perhaps 
the  names  of  two  Indians  combined  into  one. 

Communipaw.  Indian,  gamunk,  on  the  other  side  of 
the  river,  and  pe-auke,  water-land,  meaning  the  big  landing- 
place  from  the  other  side  of  the  river. 

Goffle.    At  this  place  two  roads  forked,  one  leading  to 
Hackensack  and  the  other  to  Pompton.    The  Indians  called 
the  place  lalchauwiechen,  which  means  the  fork  of  a  road. . 
The  Dutch   translated  the  word  "fork"  iinto   their  own 
language,  gaffle;  from  gaffle  to  goffle  is  easy  enough. 

Hackensack.  Indian  haki,  place ;  gischi,  now ;  achgook, 
snake ;  a  place  with  plenty  of  snakes. 

Hoboken.    Indian,  hopoacan,  a  pipe. 

Hohokus.  Indian,  ho,  a  shout ;  hokes,  bark  of  a  tree. 
According  to  the  Indians  the  cold  was  so  intense  at  this 
place  that  the  bark  of  the  trees  cracked  with  a  loud  noise. 

Mahwah.     Indian  for  field. 

Macopin.      Indian,    macopanaackhan,    place    where; 
pumpkins  grow. 

Moonachie.    Indian,  munhacke,  a  badger. 

Pamrapo.    Indian,  pemapuchk,  a  big  rock. 

Paramus.    Indian,  a  place  for  wild  turkeys. 


THE  EARLY  WHITE  SETTLERS  49 

Pascack.    Indian,  where  the  roads  divide. 

Passaic.  Indian,  pach,  to  split;  ic,  where.  Perhaps 
indicating  the  division  of  the  land  into  a  valley,  or  the 
place  where  the  river  splits  the  rocks  at  the  Falls.  There 
have  been  a  number  of  changes  in  the  spelling  of  this  word. 
It  started  out  with  Passaic  in  1666,  but  changed  the  same 
year  into  Passaick;  in  1676  it  was  Pasayak,  in  1679  Passa- 
wack,  Pisawick,  Pissaick;  in  1682  Pasawicke,  Passaiack;  in 
1686  Pissaik;  in  1695  Passaya,  in  1713  Passaiack. 

Peckman.  A  small  river,  near  Little  Falls,  the  proper 
spelling  being  Peckamin.    Indian,  pakihm,  cranberries. 

Pequannock,  with  all  its  dififerent  spellings.  Indian, 
pauqu-un-auke,  land  cleared  for  ploughing. 

Preakness.  •  Indian,  per-ukunces,  a  young  buck. 

Sicomac.  Indian,  kitchi,  great,  and  kanik,  enclosed 
land. 

Singack.  Indian,  schinghacki,  a  flat  country,  or  schin- 
gask,  a  marshy  meadow. 

Slank.  Indian,  sihillen,  where  the  river  subsides,  and 
hannek,  a  flowing  river,  the  backwater  from  a  freshet. 

Succasunna.  Indian,  suken,  black,  and  achsun,  stone,, 
black  iron  ore. 

Totowa.  Indian,  tetauwi,  between,  that  is,  land  be- 
tween the  river  and  the  mountain.  Or,  perhaps  the  Lennie; 
Lenape  borrowed  this  word  from  the  Cree  totawew,  mean- 
ing great  strength,  as  shown  by  the  river  at  the  Falls.       "^^i*! 

Wanaque  or  Wynockie.  Indian,  winak,  sassafras,  and 
aki,  place. 

Wagaraw.  Indian,  woakeu,  crooked,  and  aki,  place, 
that  is,  where  the  land  is  crooked,  due  to  the  bend  in  the 
river. 

Watchung.  Indian,  wachtschu,  a  hill,  or  wadchu,  a 
mountain. 

Watsessing.  Indian,  wadchu,  mountain,  and  achsun, 
stone,  a  stony  mountain. 


Struggle  for  Industrial  Supremacy. 


Struggle  for  Industrial  Supremacy. 


Benjamin  Franklin  wrote  in  1760  that  it  would  take 
"some  centuries"  to  populate  this  country  as  far  as  the 
Mississippi  river,  and  that  ''our  present  colonies  will  not, 
during  the  period  we  have  mentioned,  find  themselves  in  a 
condition  to  manufacture,  even  for  their  own  inhabitants, 
to  any  considerable  degree,  much  less  for  those  who  are 
settling  behind  them."  In  1768  he  wrote  that  manufactures 
were  not  desirable  excepting  for  the  purpose  of  making  use 
of  the  time  of  the  children  and  servants  of  farmers.  John 
Adams  wrote  in  1780:  "America  will  not  make  manufac- 
tures enough  for  her  own  consumption  these  thousand 
years."  George  Washington  said  that  manufactures  were 
well  enough  for  "women  and  children,  without  taking  the 
really  necessary  hand  from  tilling  the  earth."  All  of  which 
tends  to  show  that  even  men  with  great  brains  make  mis- 
takes, especially  when  they  try  to  look  into  the  future. 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON'S  IDEAS. 

Alexander  Hamilton  did  not  agree  with  these  three 
great  men;  he  believed  in  manufacturing  in  this  country 
and,  from  what  he  did  and  from  what  he  said  in  his  letters, 
it  appears  that  he  was  willing  to  do  it  all.  In  1790  he  was 
Secretary  of  the  Treasury  and  the  men  who  had  been 
elected  in  the  various  states  to  make  laws  asked  him  to  tell 
them  what  could  be  done  towards  manufacturing  in  this 
country ;  the  men  who  asked  this  question,  like  most  of  the 
other  people  here  at  that  time,  believed  that  America  was 
good  only  to  raise  crops  of  grain  and  fruit,  and  so  Hamilton 


64  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

was  asked  to  answer  the  question  put  to  him  on  the  supposi- 
tion that  America  might  have  to  do  some  manufacturing  on 
account  of  possible  wars  in  the  future.  Hamilton  set  to 
work  and  wrote  a  long  report,  which  he  sent  to  the  law- 
makers on  December  5,  1791.  In  this  he  said  that  there 
were  a  great  many  articles  which  America  could  make  and 
that  he  knew  of  some  men  who  had  met  and  who  were 
ready  to  put  up  a  great  deal  of  money  to  start  factories. 
But  he  did  not  say  that  he  was  one  of  these  men,  which, 
however,  was  the  fact.  At  that  time  all  cotton  brought  into 
this  country  had  to  pay  a  tax  to  the  government;  Hamilton 
thought  this  tax  ought  to  be  done  away  with;  he  went 
further  and  said  that  men  making  cotton  here  ought  to  re- 
ceive money  from  the  government  to  help  them  along  and 
then  added  that  this  money  should  not  be  paid  to  all  per- 
sons, but  only  to  such  as  had  formed  a  company  to  weave 
cotton.  Hamilton  did  his  best  to  take  care  of  the  company 
he  was  about  to  form.  Some  time  later  he  let  it  be  known 
that  this  company  was  ready  to  receive  men  who  were 
ready  to  join  it,  that  is,  men  who  had  money.  Hamilton 
was  a  great  man  and  people  believed  what  he  said  and  so  it 
was  not  long  before  men  with  money  were  heard  from,  all 
anxious  to  be  partners  of  Hamilton.  Even  some  of  the 
Dutch  bankers  in  Amsterdam,  in  Holland,  wrote  letters  and 
sent  money  in  order  to  become  partners.  Newspapers  in 
New  York,  Philadelphia  and  Boston  printed  long  articles, 
telling  wonderful  stories  about  the  money  that  would  be 
sure  to  be  made  by  the  "New  National  Manufactory,"  as 
it  was  called.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  Hamil- 
ton wrote  some  of  these  articles.  People  were  next  told 
that  the  big  factory  was  to  be  built  in  New  York,  New 
Jersey  or  Pennsylvania  and  this  brought  more  money  from 
New  York  and  Philadelphia.  In  this  way  altogether  over  a 
hundred  thousand  dollars  was  promised.  According  to  Ham- 
ilton's letters  he  never  had  any  idea  of  building  the  factory 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  65 

anywhere  else  than  at  the  falls  of  the  Passaic,  in  the  state 
of  New  Jersey,  at  a  place  then  called  Acquackanonk.  But 
Hamilton  did  not  make  public  this  idea  of  his  at  the  time, 
for  fear  that  some  of  the  men  who  did  not  live  near  the 
Passaic  Falls  might  not  contribute  the  money  he  expected 
from  them. 

THE  BIRTH  OF  THE  SOCIETY. 

Feeling  certain  that  there  would  be  plenty  of  money 
for  the  factory,  Hamilton  next  wrote  a  proposed  law  accord- 
ing to  which  the  name  of  the  new  company  was  to  be  the 
Society  for  Establishing  Useful  Manufactures;  this  society 
was  to  be  given  the  right  to  build  factories  and  also  to  start 
a  town  and  the  name  of  this  town  was  to  be  Paterson.  Why 
Paterson?  Because  Paterson  was  the  name  of  the  governor 
of  New  Jersey  and  Hamilton  wanted  the  lawmakers  of  New 
Jersey  to  make  the  law  he  wanted  and  he  thought  it  would 
help  him  if  he  were  to  call  the  new  town  after  the  governor. 
When  the  New  Jersey  lawmakers  took  the  matter  up  they 
were  glad  to  oblige  the  great  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of 
the  United  States  and  the  governor  of  the  state  of  New- 
Jersey  and  so  Hamilton  got  all  he  wanted.  ;.  „  i.    r.,v 

Before  the  law  was  passed  there  was  a  great  deal  of 
talk  among  the  lawmakers.  It  was  settled  that  the  new 
town  of  Paterson  with  its  big  factories  and  its  own  govern- 
ment was  to  be  placed  somewhere  in  New  Jersey,  but  just 
where  the  law  did  not  say.  Every  member  of  the  legisla- 
ture wanted  it  in  his  own  county.  Lawmakers  who  saw 
that  chances  of  getting  the  town  in  the  county  they  repre- 
sented were  poor  made  a  fight  against  it.  The  people  in 
Middlesex  county  saw  that  their  chances  were  poor  and  so 
they  did  not  want  any  other  county  to  win.  They  thought 
that  a  million  dollars  was  too  much  money  for  any  company 
to  have,  and  the  law  provided  that  the  Society  might  have 


56  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

just  that  much.  But  the  funniest  objection  came  from  a 
man  who  thought  that  it  was  wrong  to  give  the  Society  the 
right  to  build  canals;  he  said  that  some  lunatic  might 
think  it  would  be  fine  if  a  canal  were  built  from  the  Dela- 
ware river  to  Raritan  bay  and  that,  if  that  were  done, 
many  farms  would  be  cut  into  two  pieces  so  that  farmers 
could  not  get  from  one  part  to  the  other;  it  would  kill  all 
the  fruit  trees  and  make  everybody  poor  along  the  line  of 
the  canal.  Forty  years  afterwards  that  very  canal  was 
built,  not  by  the  Society,  but  by  other  men,  but  none  of  the 
horrible  things  happened  which  the  man  from  Middlesex 
county  had  seen  in  the  future.  After  a  great  deal  of  talk 
the  lawmakers  voted  and  the  result  was  that  Hamilton  won 
and  the  law,  or  charter,  was  passed,  on  November  22,  1791. 

NAMING  THE  TOWN. 

Who  was  William  Paterson,  after  whom  Paterson  was 
named?  He  was  an  Irishman,  who  arrived  in  this  country 
in  1745,  when  he  was  two  years  old.  His  parents  took  him 
to  Trenton,  where  they  lived  for  some  time;  afterwards 
they  moved  to  Princeton  and  then  to  Somerville.  He  went 
tc  college  at  Princeton  and  then  studied  law  in  the  office 
of  Richard  Stockton,  one  of  the  men  who  signed  the  Decla- 
ration of  Independence.  In  1775,  when  this  country  had 
begun  its  war  for  freedom,  he  was  elected  to  the  Provincial 
Congress,  the  body  of  men  who  made  laws  for  the  young 
republic,  and  he  was  chosen  secretary.  He  was  made  at- 
torney-general of  New  Jersey  and  in  1790  elected  governor 
of  the  state.  Afterwards  Washington  made  him  one  of  the 
judges  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States.  So 
Paterson  has  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  the  name  it  was 
given.  Paterson  died  in  Albany,  New  York,  September  9, 
1806. 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  57 

THE  state's  unprofitable  INVESTMENT. 

A  few  days  after  the  lawmakers  of  New  Jersey  had 
made  the  law  creating  the  Society  for  Establishing  Useful 
Manufactures  they  made  another  law  by  which  $10,000 
was  taken  from  the  state  treasury  and  invested  in  the  stock 
of  the  Society.  (The  state  probably  never  made  a  poorer 
investment.  It  subsequently  sold  this  stock  to  the  So- 
ciety, taking  in  exchange  some  acres  of  what  even  in  those 
days  was  called  Sandy  Hill.  In  later  days,  when  the  popula- 
tion of  Paterson  had  increased  a  great  deal,  the  Sandy  Hill 
property  was  still  considered  about  as  poor  as  could  be 
found  in  the  whole  city.  In  order  to  get  rid  of  it  the  state 
sold  it  to  various  churches  for  burying  grounds,  the  uniform 
price  paid  being  fifty  dollars  an  acre.  This  was  the  origin 
of  the  Sandy  Hill  cemeteries;  it  is  only  a  few  years  ago 
since  the  remains  of  the  dead  were  removed  from  these 
burying  grounds  and  the  property  bought  by  the  city.) 

THE  society's  FIRST  OPERATIONS. 

Yet  with  everything  that  had  been  done  for  the  Society 
the  total  amount  of  money  promised  was  only  $243,000  in- 
stead of  the  million  dollars  Hamilton  and  his  friends  had 
looked  for.  Of  the  money  promised  $15,000  was  never 
paid. 

The  members  of  the  Society  met  in  New  Brunswick  on 
the  last  Monday  in  November,  1791,  and  on  the  9th  of  the 
following  month  elected  officers  at  a  meeting  also  held  in 
New  Brunswick.  William  Duer,  a  New  York  merchant, 
was  elected  governor  and  John  Bayard  deputy  governor. 
Duer  was  related  to  Hamilton  by  marriage  and  it  was  Ham- 
ilton who  made  him  governor.  At  this  same  meeting  a 
letter  was  received  from  Hamilton  in  which  he  told  about 
engaging  a  number  of  men  as  superintendents  of  the  factory 


58  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

and,  as  these  men  had  all  worked  in  cotton  mills,  it  was 
plain  that  the  Society  was  to  make  cotton  goods.  The  di- 
rectors approved  of  everything  Hamilton  had  done.  On 
the  following  day  the  directors  agreed  to  put  advertisements 
in  newspapers  asking  men  to  answer  who  had  lots  for  sale 
on  which  factories  might  be  built.  On  January  19  the  di- 
rectors agreed  to  bring  men  from  England,  forty  or  fifty  at 
least,  men  who  knew  how  to  weave  and  print  cotton  goods, 
and  they  paid  Hamilton  and  the  governor  fifty  thousand 
dollars  to  get  these  men  to  this  country. 

It  will  be  seen  that  Hamilton  and  his  friends  were 
getting  along  very  nicely,  but  all  they  had  done  was  only  on 
paper.  They  had  a  charter,  but  the  charter  was  like  the 
man  who  was  "all  dressed  up  and  nowhere  to  go."  The 
place  where  Paterson  with  its  big  factory  was  to  be  put  had 
not  been  selected.  So,  on  January  20  the  directors  decided 
that  Paterson  and  its  factory  should  be  located  on  one  of 
three  rivers,  the  Delaware,  the  Raritan  or  the  Passaic,  and 
a  committee  was  appointed  to  decide  which. 

At  a  meeting  on  the  following  day  the  directors  con- 
cluded that  they  had  better  get  a  little  more  money.  The 
charter  of  the  Society  gave  them  the  right  to  make  a  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars  by  running  a  lottery  and  so  the  di- 
rectors decided  to  have  a  lottery.  Tickets  were  to  be  sold 
at  a  few  dollars  each  and  each  ticket  was  to  be  numbered  ; 
then  some  day  a  lot  of  numbers  were  to  be  placed  in  a 
wheel  and  the  first  number  taken  out  by  chance  would  give 
the  man  who  had  that  number  on  his  ticket  a  big  cash 
prize.  There  were  a  number  of  smaller  prizes  and  the  whole 
thing  was  fixed  up  in  a  way  which  was  all  right  in  those 
days  but  for  which  men  would  be  sent  to  jail  if  they  tried 
it  at  the  present  day.  On  April  20  the  directors  gave  up 
the  idea  of  having  a  lottery,  as  nobody  seemed  anxious  to 
buy  tickets. 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  59 

FIRST  MEETING  IN  PATERSON. 

Hamilton  was  present  at  three  meetings  of  the  directors 
held  in  Newark  on  May  16,  17  and  18.  It  was  then  decided 
that  the  town  of  Paterson  should  be  located  on  the  Passaic 
river,  between  the  residence  of  "Mr.  Isaac  Gouvemeur  near 
the  town  of  Newark  and  Chatham  Bridge."  That  was  a 
poor  way  of  saying  "at  the  Passaic  Falls,"  but  the  directors 
knew  what  they  meant.  So,  on  July  4,  1792,  the  directors 
came  to  where  Paterson  is  located  today;  they  brought 
with  them  the  book  in  which  they  had  written  down  all 
they  had  done;  this  same  book,  in  which  is  written  the 
advice  of  Alexander  Hamilton  as  this  advice  fell  from  his 
lips,  is  still  used  at  the  present  day  to  record  the  doings  of 
the  Society;  there  are  only  a  few  leaves  left  to  write  on, 
but  as  the  directors  of  the  Society  meet  very  seldom,  it  may 
last  some  years  yet;  it  is  kept  in  the  vaults  of  the  water 
company  on  Ellison  street  and  it  is  from  this  book  that  the 
writer  has  received  a  great  deal  of  the  information  con- 
tained in  this  chapter. 

When  the  directors  of  the  Society  came  to  the  place 
they  had  agreed  to  call  Paterson,  they  found  very  few  houses 
here.  They  met  General  Schuyler  at  the  house  of  Abraham 
Godwin  and  the  general  and  Mr.  Godwin  took  them  around 
and  showed  them  the  country.  They  put  their  heads  to- 
gether and  agreed  to  dig  two  canals  from  above  the  Falls  to 
make  use  of  the  water  to  turn  the  wheels  of  the  factory. 
One  of  these  canals  was  to  empty  into  the  river  near  Pas- 
saic and  the  other  near  Newark  and  it  was  at  the  latter 
place  that  Governor  Duer  said  the  factory  ought  to  be  built. 
Hamilton  wanted  to  know  where  the  money  was  coming 
from  to  dig  all  these  miles  of  canals  and  when  he  insisted 
that  the  factory  should  be  built  a  great  deal  nearer  the 
Falls  they  all  agreed  with  him.  They  then  bought  about 
seven  hundred  acres  above  and  below  the  Falls,  paying 


60  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

therefor  the  sum  of  three  thousand,  two  hundred  and  nme- 
ty-three  pounds,  eight  shillings  and  three  pence.  On  July  5 
the  directors  resolved  to  build  at  onoe:  a  mill  for  spinning 
cotton;  a  print  works  for  cotton  goods,  calicoes;  another 
mill  for  spinning  and  also  for  weaving,  and  a  number  of 
houses  for  the  people  who  were  to  work  in  these  mills.  On 
the  following  day  they  decided  that  the  number  of  houses 
for  the  workmen  should  be  fifty,  that  each  house  should  be 
twenty-four  by  eighteen  feet  in  size,  with  cellar  and  garret, 
and  that  these  houses,  together  with  a  quarter  of  an  acre  of 
land  each,  should  be  rented  for  $12.50  a  year  each  or  sold  for 
$250  to  any  workmen  who  would  agree  to  pay  that  sum 
within  twenty  years.  Bargains  just  as  good  for  more  ex- 
pensive houses  were  offered  to  the  superintendents.  The 
directors  also  agreed  to  put  up  a  saw  mill  at  once. 

BIG  IDEAS  BUT  LITTLE  MONEY. 

To  do  all  this  work  it  was  necessary  to  have  an  en- 
gineer and  so  the  Society  engaged  the  services  of  Major 
Charles  Pierre  L'Enfant,  a  Frenchman  who  had  come  to  this 
country  in  Lafayette's  army.  The  major  was  a  friend  of 
Hamilton  and  of  Washington  and  he  had  just  laid  out  the 
city  of  Washington.  He  had  some  big  ideas  and  when  he 
had  looked  the  ground  over  and  told  what  he  was  going  to 
do  the  newspapers  stated  that  Paterson  would  be  a  city 
that  would  ''far  surpass  anything  yet  seen  in  this  country." 
He  intended  to  lay  out  Paterson  as  h-e  had  Washington,  the 
central  point  here  being  a  small  elevation  between  what  are 
now  Main,  Grand  and  Ward  streets  and  sloping  down  almost 
to  where  the  Erie  tracks  now  are.  The  hill  was  afterwards 
known  as  Colt's  Hill.  From  this  hill  were  to  be  laid  out  a 
large  number  of  avenues  running  to  distant  points  of  the 
future  city. 

The  newspapers  of  the  day  spoke  in  high  terms  of  the 
future  of  the  "National  Manufactory,"  and  the  big  city  that 


STRUGGLE  FOB  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        61 

was  to  be  attached  to  it.  One  article,  which  took  up  about 
three  columns,  was  published  in  several  newspapers;  it  was 
probably  written  by  Hamilton.  The  following  are  some  of 
the  articles  that  were  to  be  made:  cotton,  woolens,  paper 
for  books  and  for  walls,  hats  of  straw  and  felt,  shoes  and 
leather  goods  generally,  carriages,,  pottery  of  all  kinds, 
bricks,  iron  pots,  steel  buttons.  The  land  in  and  about 
Paterson  became  very  valuable. 

All  this  sounds  very  big,  even  in  the  present  day  of  big 
doings,  but  the  dreams  of  Hamilton  and  his  friends  were 
not  always  very  pleasant.  A  great  deal  of  success  was  ex- 
pected to  come  on  account  of  the  wealth  and  influence  of 
William  Duer,  the  governor  of  the  Society,  but  there  had 
been  trouble  in  the  markets  of  New  York  and  Duer  found 
himself  in  jail  because  he  could  not  pay  his  debts.  Of 
course,  Hamilton  did  not  like  this,  for  Duer  was  his  friend 
and  a  jail  is  not  a  good  place  in  which  to  direct  the  putting 
up  of  buildings  fifteen  miles  away.  Of  all  the  money  that 
had  been  promised  the  Society  had  received  only  $60,000 
and  so  the  Society  was  short  of  cash.  The  banks  in  New  York 
did  not  want  to  lend  the  Society  any  money ;  at  last  $5,000 
was  received  as  a  loan  from  the  Bank  of  New  York,  but 
only  after  Hamilton  had  given  his  written  security  as  he 
did  when  he  wrote  to  the  president  of  the  bank:  "To  you, 
my  dear  sir,  I  will  not  scruple  to  say,  in  confidence,  that  the 
bank  of  New  York  shall  suffer  no  diminution  of  its  pecuni- 
ary facilities  from  any  accommodation  it  may  afford  to  the 
Society  in  question." 

THE  FIRST  MILL  IN  PATERSON. 

In  the  mean  time  Major  L'Enfant  had  been  making 
more  plans ;  he  wanted  to  build  a  big  raceway,  running  from 
above  the  Falls  to  where  Passaic  now  stands;  this  raceway 
was  to  be  built  of  solid  masonry,  high  up  in  the  air,  and 


62  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

there  were  to  be  mills  and  factories  along  both  sides.    So 
the  Society  employed  the  major  to  build  a  tavern  and  then 
got  rid  of  him.    In  his  place  came  Peter  Colt,  a  man  with  no 
big  ideas  but  with  a  great  deal  of  common  sense.    He  got 
together  a  number  of  men  with  picks  and  shovels  and  built 
a  raceway  just  about  the  way  people  built  them  in  those 
days,  with  no  masonry  or  fancy  trimmings.    But  the  direc- 
tors of  the  Society  were  anxious  to  begin  spinning  cotton, 
for  the  men  were  here  for  that  purpose,  and  the  directors 
would  not  wait  until  the  water  was  let  into  the  raceway  to 
turn  the  wheels  of  the  big  factory  yet  to  be  built.     Peter 
Colt  therefore  put  up  a  small  frame  mill,  in  which  the  power 
needed  to  turn  the  wheels  was  furnished  by  an  ox ;  and  so  it 
happened  that  the  first  mill  ever  built  in  Paterson  to  spin 
cotton  was  named  the  Bull  Mill.    Then  work  was  begun 
on  the  big  mill ;  a  street  was  laid  out  in  front  of  where  it  was 
to  be  built  and  this  street  was  named  Mill  street  and  it  has 
that  name  to  the  present  day.    The  mill  was  built  of  stone 
and  wood  and  was  four  stories  high;  on  top  of  it  was  a 
cupola  and  in  this  hung  a  bell  which  called  the  men  to  work. 
A  building,  where  printing  and  bleaching  calico  was  to  be 
done,  was  erected  on  what  is  now  Bridge  street.    A  great 
deal  of  the  machinery  was  brought  from  Europe,  for  there 
were  few  machine  shops  in  this  country.    Some  small  fittings 
of  brass  and  iron  were  brought  from  Wilmington,  Delaware, 
the  nearest  place  to  Paterson  where  such  things  were  made. 
A  man  was  given  fifty  thousand  dollars,  with  which  to  bring 
men  and  machinery  from  Europe;  just  as  if  Hamilton  and 
his  friends  did  not  have  trouble  enough,  the  man  disap- 
peared with  the  money.    The  big  mill  did  not  begin  work 
until  1794. 

ALL  MANUFACTURING  ABANDONED. 

In  the  meantime  the  Society  was  trying  to  raise  more 
money  and,  as  it  was  badly  needed,  the  directors  fell  back 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  63 

on  the  lottery  scheme.  They  offered  to  pay  people  for  selling 
tickets,  but  very  few  persons  wanted  the  tickets.  When  an 
attempt  was  made  to  sell  them  in  Boston  and  New  York, 
it  was  found  that  laws  had  been  passed  there  forbidding  lot- 
teries; the  Society  asked  the  lawmakers  of  New  York  to 
change  the  law  in  the  interest  of  the  big  "National  Manu- 
factory," but  the  lawmakers  would  not  do  as  requested. 
Finally  the  whole  lottery  scheme  was  thrown  aside  and  the 
Society,  instead  of  making  money  out  of  it,  lost  a  large  part 
of  the  little  that  was  left. 

Then  came  what  was  probably  the  first  strike  in  Pater- 
son:  the  hands  employed  in  the  bleaching  and  printing 
wanted  more  wages;  the  Society  settled  the  strike  very 
promptly  by  closing  the  works  on  Bridge  street  and  dis- 
continuing bleaching  and  printing.  As  a  final  effort  to  raise 
money  the  Society  reduced  the  prices  of  its  houses  and  lots, 
but  times  were  hard  and  nobody  wanted  to  buy,  and  so,  in 
January,  1796,  the  directors  closed  up  the  big  mill  and  went 
out  of  the  business  of  manufacturing  and  never  resumed  it 
afterwards.    Fire  destroyed  the  mill  in  1807. 

THE   FAMOUS    COLT   FAMILY. 

Peter  Colt  was  born  in  Lyme,  Conn.  At  the  breaking 
out  of  the  Revolution  he  enlisted  in  the  American  army 
and  had  a  command  under  Aaron  Burr  in  the  attack  on 
Canada.  He  was  subsequently  aid  to  General  Worcester  in 
the  regiments  from  Connecticut.  He  spoke  French  fluently 
and  Washington  made  use  of  this  in  his  intercourse  with  the 
French  army.  He  was  with  the  French  army  at  the  sur- 
render of  Cornwallis  at  Yorktown.  After  peace  had  been 
declared  he  returned  to  Connecticut  and,  while  treasurer  of 
that  state,  was  induced  to  come  to  Paterson  at  the  solicita- 
tion of  Dr.  Elias  Boudinot,  whom  he  had  met  some  years 
previous  at  Boonton.    He  had  two  sons,  John  and  Roswell 


64  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

L.,  the  latter  frequently  referred  to  as  "the  greatest  of  all 
the  Colts."  John  was  active  in  various  manufacturing  en- 
terprises in  early  Paterson ;  his  son,  E.  Boudinot,  carried  on 
the  manufacture  of  duck  until  1865,  occupying  the  Duck 
mill  on  Van  Houten  street  and  the  Essex  mill  on  Mill 
street. 

Samuel  Colt,  a  distant  relative,  was  the  inventor  of 
the  celebrated  Colt's  revolver.  He  made  his  first  pistol,  of 
wood,  in  1829 ;  in  1835  he  organized  the  Patent  Arms  com- 
pany, which  had  possession  of  the  building  even  now  known 
as  the  Gun  mill.  He  subsequently  removed  to  Connecti- 
cut. 

ROSWELL  L.  COLT. 

"The  greatest  of  all  the  Colts"  had  made  a  great  deal 
of  money  in  the  shipping  business  and  had  married  a  woman 
who  had  a  great  deal  more  than  he  had ;  she  was  the  daugh- 
ter of  Robert  Oliver,  a  shipping  merchant  of  Baltimore,  con- 
sidered at  that  time  one  of  the  wealthiest  men  in  the 
country.  Roswell  L.  was  attracted  to  Paterson  and  made 
up  his  mind  that  he  would  buy  the  whole  place.  In  order 
to  do  this  he  got  $150,000  from  his  father-in-law  and  he 
soon  owned  about  all  there  was  of  Paterson.  He  had  been 
married  a  good  many  years  when  he  determined  to  live  in 
Paterson.  He  looked  about  for  a  place  on  which  to  erect  a 
mansion  and  selected  the  small  hill  on  what  is  now  Main 
street,  opposite  the  county  jail,  the  same  small  hill  which 
Major  L'Enfant  had  intended  to  make  the  centre  of  Pater- 
son. He  told  his  wife  about  it,  but  she  would  have  none  of 
it;  the  idea  of  erecting  a  residence  on  a  small  sandhill  when 
there  was  such  a  fine  site  as  Garret  mountain  nearby  did 
not  appeal  to  her.  She  insisted  on  living  on  Garret  moun- 
tain and  she  would  live  nowhere  else,  unless  it  were  in 
Europe.    As  the  two  could  not  agree  on  this  question  they 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        65 

determined  to  separate  and  this  they  did.  When  it  came 
to  dividing  the  children — there  were  ten  of  them — they  did 
not  do  so  according  to  the  number  to  be  divided,  but  in 
accordance  with  the  wealth  of  the  parents.  It  was  finally 
agreed  that  Mrs.  Colt  should^ take  six  and  have  the  first 
pick.  She  selected  the  six  oldest  and  took  them  to  Europe 
with  her,  where  she  died  some  years  later. 

Work  was  at  once  begun  at  the  erection  of  Colt's  Hill. 
Hundreds  of  men  were  employed  at  carting  soil  and  big 
trees  and  shrubbery  to  the  small  sandhill  and  in  the  course 
of  time  that  small  sandhill  assumed  majestic  proportions:  on 
the  very  top  was  built  a  mansion  which  has  become  historic, 
for  it  was  there  that  Roswell  L.  Colt  entertained  Daniel 
Webster  and  other  great  men  of  his  day.  He  had  a  large 
retinue  of  servants  and  lived  in  princely  style.  The  picture 
of  Colt's  Hill,  which  appears  on  an  adjoining  page,  was 
taken  from  the  roof  of  St.  John's  Catholic  church  when  that 
building  was  in  the  course  of  erection.  There  were  twO' 
roads  leading  to  the  mansion,  one  from  what  is  now  De- 
Grasse  street  and  the  other  from  the  comer  of  Main  and 
Ward  streets ;  the  old  lodge  still  stands  on  that  corner.  The 
small  building  showing  in  the  picture  was  the  dwelling  of 
the  gatekeeper;  the  long  building  represents  the  hothouses. 
For  many  years  Roswell  L.  Colt,  with  his  four  children^ 
Thomas,  Roswell,  Jr.,  Morgan  G.  and  Julia,  later  the  wife 
of  DeGrasse  B.  Fowler,  lived  in  this  mansion. 

TAM  O'SHANTER  AND  SOUTER  JOHNNIE. 

In  the  picture  will  be  observed  two  statues  standing  at 
the  entrance  of  the  mansion  as  it  faces  Grand  street.  There 
is  an  interesting  history  connected  with  these  two  statues. 
James  Thom  was  born,  April  19,  1802,  in  Scotland,  near  a 
place  where  Robert  Burns  had  lived  for  some  years.  He  was 
a  poor  lad  and  was  set  to  work  in  a  factory  where  he  showed 


66  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

a  disposition  to  carving  things  out  of  wood.  Some  friends 
helped  him  along  and  he  began  cutting  out  of  stone  two 
statues  representing  Burns's  principal  characters,  Tam  0' 
Shanter  and  Souter  Johnnie.  The  statues  were  at  once 
pronounced  works  of  art  and  Thom  became  famous.  The 
first  two  he  made  were  exhibited  throughout  the  British 
isles  and  netted  the  sum  of  two  thousand  pounds,  which  was 
divided  equally  between  Thom  and  the  committee  having 
charge  of  the  erection  of  the  Burns  monument  at  Alloway. 
Thom  tried  his  hand  at  other  statues  but  these  did  not  in- 
crease his  fame  and,  as  he  had  received  orders  from  men  of 
wealth  for  no  less  than  sixteen  replicas  of  his  Tam  O'Shanter 
and  Souter  Johnnie,  he  devoted  himself  to  chiseling  out 
Tams  and  Johnnies.  He  made  considerable  money  exhibit- 
ing his  statues,  when  one  day  he  found  out  that  an  agent  he 
had  trusted  had  decamped  to  America,  taking  with  him  a 
<;onsiderable  sum  of  money  belonging  to  Thom.  Thom  at 
once  chased  to  America  after  him,  but  when  he  had  recov- 
ered what  was  his  due  he  concluded  that  America  was  a  good 
country  to  live  in,  and  so  determined  to  stay.  His  fame  had 
preceded  him  and  he  obtained  the  contract  for  furnishing 
the  ornamental  stonework  on  the  present  Trinity  church  in 
New  York.  He  looked  about  the  neighborhood  for  suitable 
stone  and  decided  on  the  red  sandstone  at  Little  Falls.  He 
subsequently  removed  to  Ramapo  where  he  lived  the  life  of 
a  gentleman  farmer  until  the  day  of  his  death,  April  17, 
1850. 

While  he  was  working  at  his  contract  with  the  Trinity 
church  people  he  made  another  pair  of  Tam  O'Shanter  and 
Souter  Johnnie,  his  intention  being  to  exhibit  them  in  this 
country.  Roswell  L.  Colt  saw  them  and  at  once  bought 
them,  for  he  wanted  something  as  an  ornament  for  his 
piazza.  Thom  made  another  pair  and  these  started  on  an 
exhibition  tour  throughout  the  country;  while  being  ferried 
across  Chesapeake  Bay  the  boat  sprang  a  leak  in  a  storm 


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STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  67 

and  went  down,  Tarn  and  Johnnie  and  all.  This  left  Roswell 
L.  Colt  as  the  only  possessor  of  a  Tarn  O'Shanter  and  Souter 
Johnnie  in  this  country  and  added  to  the  fame  of  his  man- 
sion. The  two  statues  have  been  reproduced  on  numerous 
occasions  in  bronze  and  other  metals. 

A  woman  called  one  day  at  the  Colt  mansion  to  see  the 
owner.  She  went  to  the  kitchen  entrance  and  inquired 
when  Mr.  Colt  would  be  at  leisure.  She  was  told  that  Mr. 
Colt  was  not  at  home,  but  she  declared  that  he  was,  for  she 
had  just  seen  him  talking  to  one  of  his  friends  on  the  piazza 
and  she  was  near  enough  to  him  to  recognize  him.  This 
may  afford  the  reader  some  idea  as  to  what  Roswell  L.  Colt 
looked  like. 

In  1889  Morgan  G.  Colt  and  Mrs.  DeGrasse  B.  Fowler, 
the  two  surviving  children  of  Roswell  L.  Colt,  determined 
to  cut  down  Colt's  Hill  in  order  that  the  property  might  be 
put  in  the  market.  (The  hill  was  removed  two  years  later.) 
The  mansion  had  long  been  abandoned  as  a  residence,  Tam 
O'Shanter  and  Souter  Johnnie  standing  guard  in  solitary 
grandeur.  So  the  owners  of  the  precious  pair  made  a  present 
of  them  to  the  trustees  of  the  Public  Library  and  they  were 
transferred  to  the  entrance  of  the  old  library  building  on  the 
corner  of  Market  and  Church  streets,  and  here  they  ended 
their  existence  in  the  great  fire  in  February,  1902. 

NAMING  THE  STREETS  OF  PATERSON. 

Roswell  L.  Colt  did  a  great  deal  for  the  city  of  Pater- 
son  :  his  attempts  at  re-establishing  manufacturing  did  not 
prove  successful,  but  he  will  ever  live  in  grateful  remem- 
brance on  account  of  his  numerous  gifts  to  churches  and 
other  institutions  in  Paterson.  He  had  a  great  deal  to  do 
with  shaping  the  destiny  of  the  city. 

Peter  Colt  had  begun  laying  out  streets  and  naming 
them  and  Roswell  continued  in  his  father's  footsteps.    Be- 


68  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

tween  the  two  and  a  few  others  streets  in  Paterson  were 
named  as  follows :  , 

Boudinot  street,  named  after  Elias  Boudinot,  is  the 
present  Van  Houten  street,  between  Main  street  and  the 
raceways.  Van  Houten  street,  named  after  Abraham  Van 
Houten,  who  assisted  Peter  Colt  in  the  laying  out  of  the 
street,  originally  began  about  where  Washington  street 
crosses  it  at  the  present  day  and  extended  easterly.  When 
the  hill  between  Washington  and  Main  streets  was  cut  down 
Van  Houten  street  was  extended  through  to  Main  street; 
as  it  came  out  directly  opposite  Boudinot  street,  both  streets 
were  thenceforth  called  Van  Houten. 

There  was  a  somewhat  similar  state  of  affairs  as  far  as 
Ellison  street  is  concerned.  It  was  Ellison  street  from 
Washington  eastwardly  and  John  street  from  Washington 
street  to  Mill.  In  the  course  of  time  the  two  streets  were 
called  Ellison.  Dr.  Ellison,  after  whom  the  street  is  named, 
was  one  of  the  earliest  practicing  physicians  in  the  city; 
John  Clarke,  after  whom  John  street  was  named,  was  among 
the  early  manufacturers. 

Abraham  Willis,  while  he  was  laying  out  streets,  named 
one  after  himself,  a  name  changed  to  Park  avenue  when  the 
city  acquired  the  Eastside  Park. 

Oliver  was  the  maiden  name  of  Mrs.  Roswell  L.  Colt. 

Mill  street  was  named  because  on  it  was  built  the  first 
mill  of  any  size  in  Paterson. 

Cross  street  derived  its  name  because  it  crossed  from 
Market  to  Oliver. 

The  history  of  Market  street  is  somewhat  similar  to 
that  of  Van  Houten  and  Ellison  streets.  The  thoroughfare 
running  from  where  the  city  hall  is  now  located  westerly 
to  Spruce  street  was  named  Congress  by  Judge  Boudinot. 
From  the  present  city  hall  westerly  it  was  named  Market; 
its  width  to  where  the  Erie  tracks  are  now  located  was  made 
ninety  feet,  for  it  was  the  intention  at  the  time  to  construct 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        69 

a  market  building  through  the  middle  of  the  street,  a  long 
frame  shed  for  the  accommodation  of  farmers,  butchers  and 
others  who  had  goods  for  sale.  Subsequently  the  name  Con- 
gress was  abandoned  for  the  westerly  part  of  the  street  and  it 
was  all  called  Market. 

Godwin  street  was  named  in  honor  of  the  patriotic 
Godwin  family. 

Bank  street  was  named  in  1824  because  the  Peoples 
Bank  did  business  on  the  corner  of  that  street  and  Ryerson 
street. 

Vreeland  avenue  was  originally  named  Buttermilk 
lane;  its  name  was  changed  in  honor  of  the  Vreelands  who 
lived  there  during  the  Revolutionary  war  and  the  Vreelands 
— Michael  Hartman  and  Cornelius — who  ran  a  tannery  and 
saw  mill  on  the  stream  which  formerly  emptied  into  the 
river  at  the  foot  of  Twentieth  avenue. 

The  triangular  plot  bounded  by  Park  avenue,  Market 
street  and  Straight  street  was  known  as  the  Bowery  and  is 
thus  referred  to  in  many  old  deeds.  About  half  a  mile  east 
of  the  Bowery  stood  a  tavern  named  Peace  and  Plenty  and 
this  gave  that  name  to  the  neighborhood. 

GARRET  ROCK  AND  GARRET  MOUNTAIN. 

There  is  a  vague  tradition  that  a  man  named  Garret 
one  day  lost  his  way  on  the  mountain  and  tumbled  down 
the  precipice  now  known  as  Garret  Rock  and  that  in  this 
way  the  mountain  and  rock  obtained  their  name.  There  is 
no  foundation  whatever  for  the  story,  for  the  mountain  and 
rock  received  their  name  in  an  altogether  different  way.  In 
old  records  the  mountain  is  called  Wesel ;  the  rock  seems  to 
have  got  along  without  any  specific  name.  Occasionally 
reference  is  found  to  te  Gebergte  or  te  Gebarrack,  "at  the 
mountain."  The  name  Garret  does  not  appear  until  1811. 
About  that  time  there  were  in  Paterson  a  number  of  men 


70  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

of  a  jolly  disposition  who  formed  a  society  called  the  Garret 
Society,  because  their  meetings  were  held  in  a  garret.  The 
motto  of  the  society  was  "Keep  Dark."  The  object  of  the 
society  was  to  have  a  good  time  when  none  but  members 
were  looking  on,  and  to  indulge  in  all  sorts  of  pranks.  The 
leader  of  the  society  was  John  Crawford,  a  carpenter  who 
had  come  from  Newark  to  work  at  the  erection  of  the  resi- 
dence for  Peter  Colt,  afterwards  the  city  hall  of  Paterson. 
One  evening  the  society  agreed  to  celebrate  the  Fourth  of 
July  by  discharging  a  big  cannon  from  the  top  of  the  Wesel 
mountain.  The  question  was  how  to  get  the  cannon  up 
there  and  the  job  was  undertaken  by  Crawford,  who  had  a 
great  deal  of  well-developed  muscle.  So  on  the  evening  of 
the  3d  John  shouldered  the  cannon  and  hied  himself  moun- 
tainward.  Just  as  the  first  rays  of  the  sun  on  the  fourth 
were  peeping  above  the  Palisades  John  fired  the  cannon 
and,  as  quickly  as  he  could  reload  it,  he  fired  it  again  and 
again  in  rapid  succession.  The  people  of  Paterson  were 
naturally  very  much  surprised  at  this  rude  awakening  from 
their  peaceful  slumbers,  but  after  a  moment's  reflection  they 
did,  as  they  had  done  for  some  time  whenever  anything  out . 
of  the  usual  happened :  they  said,  "That's  the  Garret  crowd 
again."  They  had  concluded  that  the  Garret  society  had 
changed  its  place  of  meeting  from  the  customary  garret  to 
the  top  of  the  mountain  and  ever  after  the  mountain  was 
referred  to  as  Garret  mountain  and  the  rock  as  Garret  rock. 

THE   S.   U.   M.   OF  TODAY. 

After  the  failure  of  the  Society  for  Establishing  Useful 
Manufactures  in  the  field  of  manufacturing,  its  directors 
held  few  meetings,  for  there  was  little  or  nothing  for  them 
to  do.  They  pursued  the  policy  known  at  the  present  day 
as  "watchful  waiting."  They  did  not  have  to  wait  long,  for 
power  to  run  machinery  was  worth  money  and  there  was  a 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  71 

lot  of  it  running  to  waste  down  the  Falls.  All  the  early 
manufacturers  who  came  to  Paterson  obtained  their  power 
from  the  Society,  for  the  Society  owned  the  Falls.  Contrary 
to  a  widespread  impression  the  charter  of  the  Society  does 
not  give  it  any  peculiar  rights  in  the  Passaic  river;  it  has 
the  same  rights  which  every  owner  of  property  along  a  river 
has,  the  right  to  the  undiminished  flow  of  the  water.  A  man 
living  along  a  stream  has  the  right  to  use  the  water  for 
ordinary  domestic  purposes,  but  he  cannot  divert  the  water 
so  as  to  injure  people  who  own  property  below  him.  The 
Society's  most  valuable  possession  is  the  Falls  and  it  paid 
cash  for  that  property;  it  has  the  right  to  make  all  the 
money  possible  out  of  it,  just  as  a  man  can  do  with  an  oil 
well  or  a  gold  mine  on  his  property.  This  right  of  the  So- 
ciety was  disputed  in  the  case  of  the  Morris  canal ;  the  peo- 
ple owning  the  canal  took  water  out  of  the  river,  but  the 
courts  soon  put  a  stop  to  that,  for  the  Society  was  entitled 
to  the  full  flow  of  the  river;  water  taken  out  of  the  river 
above  Paterson  could  not  turn  machinery  in  Paterson^        ; 

The  Society  accordingly  increased  its  raceways;  mills 
and  factories  were  erected  along  these  raceways  and  all  paid 
money  to  the  Society  for  the  use  of  the  water  for  power. 
The  charge  for  the  use  of  the  water  depended  upon  the  size"- 
of  the  pipe  or  conduit  supplying  the  mill  or  factory,  the* 
basis  being  a  charge  of  $400  per  year  for  one  square  foot,  . 
this  being  equal  to  fifteen  horse  power.     About  1865  tJae-" 
demand  for  water  power  was  so  great  that  the  Society  in- 
creased the  size  of  the  dam  above  the  Falls  and  then  charged 
for  the  surplus  water  thus  obtained ;  manufacturers  leasing 
power  paid  $400  per  square  foot  under  their  contract  and 
then  $900  per  square  foot  for  the  surplus  water.    The  So- 
ciety's income  in  this  way  was  increased  to  about  $70,000 
per  year.    At  the  present  day  the  Society  receives  $1,200 
per  square  foot  from  such  manufacturers  as  do  not  require 


72  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

a  great  deal  of  water;  from  this  figure  the  price  goes  down 
to  $800  per  square  foot  for  larger  quantities. 

A  MATTER  OF  WATER  SUPPLY. 

When  in  1854  a  number  of  prominent  men  in  Paterson 
-undertook  to  secure  a  water  supply  for  this  city  they  found 
it  necessary  to  consult  the  Society.  No  understanding  being 
arrived  at,  because  the  Society  wanted  every  drop  of  water 
.above  the  Falls  to  turn  into  its  raceways,  the  first  supply 
for  Paterson  was  taken  out  of  the  river  below  the  Falls ;  it 
was  from  there  pumped  to  a  reservoir  above  the  Falls  and 
from  there  flowed  by  gravity  into  the  pipes  which  supplied 
the  people  of  Paterson.  Subsequently  an  arrangement  was 
made  by  which  the  water  was  taken  from  above  the  Falls 
and  pumped  into  the  reservoir  by  means  of  a  wheel  placed 
in  the  Falls.  Then  a  suggestion  was  made  that  the  city 
.ought  to  buy  the  water  works,  but  the  voters  said  No,  be- 
cause the  water  company  did  not  have  rights  which  were 
worth  the  price  asked.  A  few  years  ago  the  voters  said  Yes 
to  the  same  question,  but  nothing  was  done,  as  the  proposi- 
tion was  too  great  and  complicated. 

Even  the  state  shrank  from  the  proposition  when  there 
•was  talk  about  the  state  taking  charge  of  the  water  supply 
in  northern  New  Jersey,  but  what  the  state  would  not  do 
some  men  with  plenty  of  money  were  willing  to  try.  The 
first  man  to  undertake  the  task  was  John  R.  Bartlett  and 
the  first  step  he  took  was  to  buy  out  the  Society,  so  that  he 
eould  do  with  the  Passaic  river  water  what  he  liked.  Mr. 
Bartlett  had  a  notion  in  his  head  which  may  seem  funny  at 
this  day.  He  wanted  to  take  the  water  of  the  Passaic  river 
and  lead  it  to  New  York.  In  order  to  do  this  he  would  have 
to  build  a  tunnel  under  the  Hudson.  Some  men  before  this 
time  had  begun  work  on  such  a  tunnel,  but  not  in  order  to 
carry  water  but  for  foot  passengers.    These  men  did  not 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        73 

have  enough  money  to  finish  the  tunnel  and  so  Mr.  Bartlett 
bought  what  there  was  of  it.  The  tunnel  had  been  started 
at  Hoboken  and  the  New  York  end  was  to  be  at  Washing- 
ton square.  Mr.  Bartlett  spent  a  good  deal  of  money  on 
this  tunnel  before  he  gave  it  up,  having  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  water  in  northern  New  Jersey  could  be 
more  readily  sold  to  the  people  in  northern  New  Jersey. 
Mr.  Bartlett  sold  his  tunnel  and  it  was  completed  many 
years  later  and  now  connects  Hoboken  with  Christopher 
street,  New  York. 

The  river  water  below  Paterson  was  growing  worse  until 
at  last  the  Newark  people  said  that  they  could  stand  it  no 
longer ;  they  must  have  clean  water  and  Paterson  must  stop 
emptying  its  sewers  into  the  river.  Paterson  was  ready  with 
its  answer.  A  man  had  been  employed  who  had  gone  to 
Newark  and  dropped  some  marked  sticks  into  the  river  right 
in  the  middle  where  the  river  flows  through  Newark;  he 
watched  those  sticks  and  saw  that  the  tide  carried  them  up 
the  river,  higher  and  higher,  until  at  last  he  saw  them  at 
Belleville  and  it  was  at  Belleville  that  Newark  had  its  pumps 
to  take  the  water  out  of  the  river  for  itself  and  also  for 
Jersey  City.  What  sticks  would  do  sewage  would  do  and  it 
was  plain  that  Newark  and  Jersey  City  were  drinking  not 
only  Paterson's  sewage,  but  Newark's  as  well.  Newark 
ceased  scolding  Paterson  for  polluting  the  river  and  turned 
to  Mr.  Bartlett  and  the  men  who  were  his  partners.  And 
this  is  just  what  they  were  waiting  for.  They  knew  that 
Newark  would  have  to  come,  for  Newark  could  do  nothing 
without  the  Society  and  they  owned  the  Society.  So  the 
men  who  had  put  so  much  money  into  the  water  scheme  and 
the  authorities  of  Newark  got  together  and  the  result  was 
that  a  bargain  was  struck  by  which  Newark  was  to  have  a 
water  supply  of  fifty  million  gallons  a  day  and  was  to  pay 
therefor  six  million  dollars.  Building  water  works  for  a  city 
under  such  circumstances  was  something  entirely  new  but 


74  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

the  engineer  who  had  been  employed  to  look  after  the  work 
was  sure  that  it  could  be  done  at  a  profit  of  over  a  million 
dollars.  So  work  was  begun  to  make  the  Pequannock  river 
yield  a  regular  water  supply  to  the  city  of  Newark.  Two 
reservoirs,  Clinton  and  Oak  Ridge,  were  built.  The  water 
from  these  reservoirs  runs  down  the  Pequannock  river  to 
Macopin,  where  a  large  basin,  or  intake,  was  built,  and  from 
this  Newark  was  to  be  supplied  by  means  of  a  steel  pipe 
forty-eight  inches  in  diameter.  According  to  the  figures  of 
the  engineer  fifty  million  gallons  a  day  will  pass  through 
a  forty-eight  inch  pipe.  But  water  from  natural  sources 
carries  with  it  the  seeds  of  a  moss  and  these  seeds  quickly 
take  root  along  the  inside  of  any  kind  of  pipe.  That  is  just 
what  happened  in  this  case  and  the  result  was  that  Newark 
was  not  getting  fifty  million  gallons  of  water  a  day,  for  the 
moss  had  reduced  the  carrying  capacity  of  the  pipe.  There 
was  nothing  to  be  done  but  to  lay  another  pipe  and  this 
cost  a  great  deal  of  money.  Then  Newark  measured  the 
two  reservoirs  and  found  that  they  would  not  hold  enough 
water  to  supply  Newark  in  a  dry  season.  Canistear  reser- 
voir was  built  and,  as  even  this  was  not  quite  suflBcient  to 
hold  the  water  needed,  Macopin  lake,  or  Echo  lake,  as  it 
is  frequently  called,  was  turned  over  to  Newark.  The  men 
who  had  taken  this  big  job  figured  up  how  they  stood  and 
found  that  they  had  spent  seven  and  a  half  million  dollars 
and  that  instead  of  making  a  million  and  a  half  they  were 
just  about  that  much  out  of  pocket. 

About  this  time  the  people  of  Jersey  City  set  up  a  cry 
for  clean  water  and  a  man  named  Patrick  H.  Flynn  agreed 
to  give  them  a  supply  for  seven  and  a  half  million  dollars. 
He  bought  the  rights  owned  by  the  Society  for  Establishing 
Useful  Manufactures  in  the  Rockaway  river  and  began  work. 
But  he  did  not  have  enough  money  to  carry  it  through  and 
the  men  who  had  supplied  Newark  with  water  took  the  job 
off  his  hands,  this  time  making  a  good  profit.    But  these 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        75 

same  men  had  been  making  money  in  other  contracts  of  the 
same  kind.  In  1894  they  organized  the  New  Jersey  General 
Security  Company  and  into  the  treasury  of  this  company 
went  everything  in  the  way  of  water  rights  and  contracts. 
This  company  now  supplies  Paterson,  Passaic,  Clifton,  Glen 
Ridge,  Montclair,  Orange,  West  Orange,  Bloomfield,  Nutley, 
Bayonne,  Little  Falls,  Kearney,  Harrison  and  East  Newark 
with  water.  It  owns  the  Society  for  Establishing  Useful 
Manufactures  and  the  Dundee  Water  Power  &  Land  Com- 
pany; this  latter  company  owns  the  dam  in  the  Passaic 
river  just  below  Paterson  and  supplies  many  factories  in 
Passaic  with  power. 

Taking  so  much  water  out  of  the  river,  which  might 
have  run  down  to  Paterson,  made  trouble  for  the  Society, 
for  the  Society  had  promised  to  keep  a  number  of  factories 
and  mills  supplied  with  water  to  turn  the  wheels  which 
make  the  machinery  go.  In  some  cases  the  Society  had  sold 
factories  with  a  promise  that  the  water  would  never  be  cut 
off  from  those  factories.  The  Society  could  not  keep  its 
promises  on  account  of  the  water  taken  out  for  Newark, 
Jersey  City  and  other  places.  In  order  to  get  out  of  this 
trouble,  and  also  to  sell  more  water,  the  Society  a  few  years 
ago  put  up  the  buildings  which  may  be  seen  in  the  basin 
below  the  Falls.  Electric  power  is  now  made  by  the  water 
which  comes  down  the  river  and  this  power  is  sent  to  the 
factories  and  mills  the  Society  has  promised  to  supply  with 
power.  But  the  Society  has  more  power  than  it  needs  and 
it  sells  this  to  the  Edison  company  which  uses  it  to  run  street 
cars;  in  turn,  the  Society  buys  power  from  the  Edison  com- 
pany when  there  is  not  enough  water  coming  down  the  river 
to  make  the  amount  of  power  wanted  by  the  Society. 

The  question  will  now  be  asked :  How  about  Paterson's 
water  supply?  It  is  a  question  easily  answered.  Some  days 
a  great  deal  of  water  runs  down  the  river ;  some  days  very 
little  and  none  at  all  for  a  few  days  nearly  every  year.    Men 


76  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OP  PATERSON  HISTORY 

have  been  employed  for  a  great  many  years  to  keep  an  ac- 
count of  this  flow  of  water;  their  figures  show  that  if  the 
whole  amount  of  water  that  flowed  down  the  river  in  twenty 
years  was  divided  by  the  whole  number  of  days  in  twenty 
years  1282  cubic  feet  of  water  would  flow  down  the  river 
every  second.  Newark  takes  about  seventy  cubic  feet  per 
second ;  Jersey  City  takes  about  seventy-five  and  the  water 
companies  supplied  by  the  New  Jersey  General  Security 
Company  take  about  seventy-two.  In  the  latter  figure  are 
included  the  thirteen  cubic  feet  used  by  Paterson.  It  is 
consequently  not  a  question  of  the  supply  of  water,  but  of 
storage  during  dry  seasons. 

Four  rivers  empty  their  waters  into  the  Passaic:  The 
Pequannock,  Rockaway,  Ramapo  and  Wanaque.  Newark 
owns  the  Pequannock,  Jersey  City  the  Rockaway.  The 
points  where  the  water  is  taken  are  high  enough  so  that  no 
pumping  is  necessary.  But  pumping  would  be  necessary  if 
the  Ramapo  were  taken  for  a  water  supply,  for  it  lies  low. 
So  for  the  present  at  least  the  Ramapo  is  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. There  remains  the  Wanaque,  a  river  which  gets  its 
water  from  mountains  and  springs;  it  lies  high  and  could 
supply  Paterson  and  Newark  without  any  pumping.  As 
Newark  will  soon  need  an  additional  water  supply,  Newark 
has  applied  to  the  state  authorities  for  permission  to  take 
the  Wanaque,  for  the  state  has  recently  done  what  the  state 
should  have  done  half  a  century  ago,  taken  hold  of  the 
matter  of  water  supply.  Newark  has  obtained  the  desired 
permission  with  the  understanding  that  Paterson  is  to  share 
in  it  at  any  time  Paterson  may  want  to  do  so.  In  the  mean 
time  Paterson  will  continue  taking  its  water  as  it  is  pumped 
from  the  river  near  Little  Falls. 

Sometimes  the  quantity  of  water  in  the  Passaic  river  is 
too  much  for  the  comfort  of  some  people  living  in  Paterson. 
During  the  past  forty  years  Paterson  has  had  four  floods 
which  did  considerable  damage.     The  quantity  of  water 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  77 

flowing  down  the  river  was  enormous  on  those  occasions.  A 
cubic  foot  of  water  is  equal  to  7.4805  gallons;  on  December 
12,  1878,  16,000  cubic  feet  of  water  passed  down  the  river 
every  second;  on  September  25,  1882,  18,200;  on  March  2, 
1902,  21,300;  on  October  10,  1903,  28,000. 

AN  ANCIENT  GRIST  MILL. 

In  1810  there  was  a  freshet  in  the  river  and  it  washed 
away  a  grist  mill  which  stood  along  the  river  just  above 
where  the  West  street  bridge  now  stands.  That  grist  mill 
had  stood  there  a  good  many  years ;  few  people  knew  when 
it  had  been  built  and  it  was  only  in  later  years  that  papers 
were  found  which  showed  that  it  was  built  as  early  as  1737. 
Hendrick  Spier  owned  the  property  as  far  back  as  1714  but 
his  land  ran  only  to  the  river.  John  Joralemon  bought  the 
property  in  1737  and  in  the  same  year  Adrian  A.  Post  and 
Juriaen  Thomasse  bought  it  from  an  Indian  named  Tahtho- 
chear,  but  neither  of  these  deeds  went  as  far  as  the  bank 
of  the  river,  being  only  for  the  island  and  the  bottom  of  the 
river  on  both  sides  of  it.  The  Indian  deed  was  decided  not 
to  be  worth  anything  as  far  as  the  Spier  property  was  con- 
cerned and  the  result  was  that  Joralemon  had  the  water  and 
Spier  the  place  where  a  grist  mill  could  be  erected.  The 
two  went  into  partnership  and  built  the  first  grist  mill  in 
what  are  now  the  limits  of  the  city  of  Paterson. 

METAL,   PAPER  AND  BOBBINS. 

When  Alexander  Hamilton  and  his  friends  said  that 
Paterson  was  to  be  the  place  for  the  one  big  factory  in  the 
new  world,  people  began  to  come  to  Paterson  in  order  to 
get  a  share  of  all  the  good  things  that  were  promised.  Some 
of  these  people  received  floor  space  in  the  Society's  mill  and 
others  set  up  shops  and  mills  in  other  places. 

John  Clarke  was  making  articles  of  brass  and  tin  in 
1794  and  in  the  following  year  he  moved  to  the  Society's 


78  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

mill  and  remained  there  until  the  mill  burned  down.  For 
some  time  he  worked  at  his  trade  in  the  old  grist  mill  at  the 
foot  of  Mulberry  street;  then  he  moved  to  lower  Broadway. 
In  1825  his  successor,  Horatio  Moses,  had  his  shop  on  Van 
Houten  street,  south  side,  below  Main.  Either  Clark  or 
Moses  hung  out  as  a  sign  a  big  brass  dog,  carrying  a  kettle 
in  its  mouth ;  the  sign  was  not  taken  down  until  a  few  years 
ago. 

Before  1802  paper  was  all  made  in  sheets;  it  was  first 
made  in  a  roll  in  1802  in  Paterson  by  Charles  Kinsey,  who 
had  a  paper  mill  on  Van  Houten  street,  below  where  the 
Edison  works  stand  today.  The  name  of  the  firm  was  Kin- 
sey, Crane  &  Fairchild;  Kinsey  had  the  brains  and  Crane 
and  Fairchild  the  money.  When  people  thought  that  a  great 
deal  of  money  was  to  be  made  by  manufacturing  cotton 
goods,  Crane  and  Fairchild  did  not  want  to  bother  any 
longer  with  making  paper  and  so  they  turned  the  paper  mill 
into  a  cotton  mill. 

Thomas  Van  Houten  made  bobbins  at  Cedar  Grove  for 
use  in  the  Society's  mill ;  he  cut  down  trees  and  with  a  buck 
saw  cut  the  wood  into  small  pieces;  then  with  a  chisel  and 
brace  he  made  the  bobbins.  In  1805  he  took  his  brother 
Dirck  into  partnership  and  they  moved  their  workshop  to 
the  Peckamin  river,  between  Paterson  and  Little  Falls.  In 
1827  the  brothers  came  to  Paterson  and  put  up  a  frame  mill 
along  the  river  where  Clinton  street  now  ends  and  they 
remained  there  for  seven  years,  when  Thomas  died.  The 
industry  has  changed  hands  frequently  since  that  time;  at 
the  present  it  is  the  Van  Riper  Manufacturing  Company  on 
lower  Van  Houten  street. 

AN    EARLY    ADVERTISER. 

John  Parke  was  one  of  the  early  citizens  of  Paterson 
who  made  people  know  he  was  here.  He  was  making  candle- 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  79 

wicks  in  the  Society's  mill  when  that  building  was  burned 
down  in  1807;  he  then  built  a  mill  for  cotton  spinning  on 
Van  Houten  street ;  this  mill  is  today  a  part  of  the  Phoenix 
silk  mills.  In  addition  to  making  cotton  he  kept  a  store  in 
Paterson.  He  found  that  it  paid  to  advertise  his  store  and 
so  he  thought  it  would  pay  him  to  advertise  his  cotton 
business  and  Paterson  at  the  same  time.  In  those  days 
goods  were  shipped  from  Paterson  by  being  taken  in  wagons 
to  the  river  below  Passaic;  here  they  were  loaded  into 
schooners  and  in  that  way  taken  to  Philadelphia,  which 
seems  to  have  been  the  place  where  most  of  the  goods  made 
in  Paterson  were  sold.  Parke  changed  all  this.  He  bought 
some  large  wagons,  painted  them  all  sorts  of  gaudy  colors 
and  then  hitched  either  four  or  six  horses  to  each  for  the 
trip  to  Philadelphia.  In  that  way  people  living  between 
Paterson  and  Philadelphia  learned  that  there  was  such  a 
place  as  Paterson  and  that  John  Parke  made  calico  and  kept 
a  store  there.  Parke  kept  this  up  for  some  years  but  in 
1812  could  make  no  more  calico;  the  United  States  was  at 
war  with  England  and  no  cotton  came  from  the  South; 
there  were  no  railroads  in  those  days  and  cotton  was  brought 
to  the  North  in  sailing  vessels  and  these  would  probably 
have  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  English  if  they  had  left  the 
ports  in  the  South.  So  Parke  had  to  close  up  his  factory 
and  a  short  time  after  he  found  that  he  did  not  have  enough 
to  pay  his  debts.  Afterwards  he  was  postmaster  of  Pater- 
son and  one  of  the  judges  of  the  county  courts. 

QUARREL   ABOUT  A   DAM. 

Standing  on  the  Main  street  bridge  and  looking  down 
the  river,  or  standing  on  the  Arch  street  bridge  and  looking 
up  the  river,  the  principal  object  seen  nowadays  is  a  dam. 
That  dam  was  built  in  1838  by  William  Stagg  in  order  to 
give  power  to  turn  the  wheels  of  his  grist  mill,  which  stood 


80  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

on  the  north  side  of  the  river  near  the  foot  of  Clinton  street, 
where  the  Pope  mill  now  stands.  Stagg  had  trouble  before 
he  was  ready  for  business.  The  True  Reformed  Dutch 
church  had  property  near  where  Stagg  wanted  to  build  his 
mill  and  the  people  of  the  church  did  not  like  the  idea  of 
having  a  grist  mill  so  near  to  their  church.  So  they  went 
to  court  about  it  and  three  men  were  appointed  to  settle  the 
matter.  These  three  men  decided  in  favor  of  Stagg,  as  all 
persons  may  read  in  their  report,  in  which  they  say  "that 
the  church  people  must  not  mislest  or  prevent  Stagg  from 
erecting  his  mill  and  dam  on  said  sight  without  any  truble 
or  Damage  of  expence  from  them  or  their  suckcessors." 

THE  SILK  INDUSTRY. 

Everybody  in  Paterson  knows  that  there  are  a  great 
many  silk  mills  in  Paterson  but  everybody  does  not  know 
who  started  this  industry.  In  1839  one  of  the  big  silk  mills 
in  Macclesfield,  England,  was  owned  by  two  brothers,  Reu- 
ben and  William  Ryle.  Another  brother,  John,  was  working 
for  them  as  superintendent.  Reuben  and  William  thought 
that  perhaps  they  might  do  some  business  in  this  country  if 
they  had  somebody  to  look  after  selling  their  silks  here.  So 
they  asked  John  to  take  the  job.  This  suited  John  very 
well,  for  he  had  long  had  a  desire  to  come  to  this  country. 
He  went  looking  around  when  he  got  here  and  at  one  time 
held  the  position  of  superintendent  of  a  small  silk  mill  in 
Northampton,  Mass.;  here  he  became  acquainted  with 
George  W.  Murray,  who  had  been  interested  in  the  silk 
business  in  England.  Reuben  and  William  wrote  to  their 
brother,  saying  that  he  had  been  sent  to  this  country  to  look 
after  their  business  and  that  it  was  about  time  he  opened 
a  store  here  where  they  could  sell  their  silks.  So  John  went 
to  New  York  where  he  opened  a  store  on  the  comer  of 
William  street  and  Maiden  lane.    Here  Mr.  Murray  came 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  81 

to  see  him  and  talked  him  into  going  to  Paterson  to  see  what 
chance  there  was  for  a  silk  mill  here.  Mr.  Ryle  came  to 
Paterson  where  he  met  Christopher  Colt,  a  man  who  had 
tried  making  silk  in  the  old  Gun  mill  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Rocks;  three  months  of  silk  had  been  all  that  Mr.  Colt 
wanted  and  he  had  quit.  Mr.  Ryle  reported  to  Mr.  Murray 
and  then  the  two  came  out  here  and  the  result  was  that  Mr. 
Murray  bought  the  Gun  mill,  J&Ued  it  up  with  silk  machinery 
and  placed  Mr.  Ryle  in  charge.  What  was  made  was  sew- 
ing silk  and  that  silk  in  those  days  was  sold  in  skeins,  for 
spools  had  not  been  thought  of.  About  this  time  Elias 
Howe  had  begun  his  invention  of  sewing  machines;  the 
main  trouble  he  had  was  to  feed  the  silk  to  the  needle;  he 
found  it  hard  to  do  this  when  the  thread  came  only  in 
skeins.  So  he  spoke  to  Mr.  Ryle  and  the  result  was  that 
Mr.  Ryle  found  a  way  of  putting  silk  on  spools;  the  first 
silk  thread  used  on  sewing  machines  came  from  Paterson. 
This  was  very  good  for  both  the  maker  of  sewing  machines 
and  the  maker  of  the  silk  thread.  Mr.  Murray  took  Mr. 
Ryle  into  partnership  and  the  firm  of  Murray  &  Ryle  made 
money ;  in  1846  Mr.  Ryle  bought  out  Mr.  Murray's  interest 
in  the  business  and  continued  it  alone.  He  built  a  new  mill, 
which  he  named  Murray  after  his  former  partner ;  this  mill 
was  burned  down,  but  Mr.  Ryle  at  once  began  work  on  the 
Murray  mill  where  silk  is  still  made  at  the  present  day. 

Such  was  the  beginning  of  the  silk  industry  in  America, 
for  before  Mr.  Ryle  took  hold  of  the  matter,  the  silk  made 
in  this  country  was  not  worth  talking  about.  To  the  people 
of  Paterson  the  silk  industry  has  been  a  great  help.  When 
there  were  "hard  times,"  and  the  locomotive  works  were 
closed  for  several  years,  the  silk  mills  kept  on  working ;  the 
wages  were  not  as  high  as  in  the  locomotive  works,  but 
people  learned  that  even  low  wages  were  better  than  no 
wages  at  all. 


82  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

In  Paterson  is  to  be  found  every  branch  of  the  silk 
industry  with  the  exception  of  taking  the  silk  thread  from 
the  cocoon,  where  it  was  spun  by  the  worm,  and  putting  it 
up  in  skeins.  This  work  is  done  in  countries  where  people 
are  satisfied  with  wages  of  a  few  cents  a  day.  Some  attempts 
at  growing  silk  have  been  made  in  Paterson  and  in  several 
places  in  the  city  mulberry  trees  may  still  be  seen.  The 
leaves  of  these  trees  are  what  silk  worms  are  fond  of  and 
so  these  trees  were  brought  here  to  feed  the  silk  worms. 
The  silk  worms  did  their  part  and  some  people  even  took 
the  silk  threads  from  the  cocoons  and  it  was  worked  up  into 
articles;  this  was  amusement  and  curiosity  but  not  work 
that  paid.  An  attempt  at  raising  silk  in  Georgia  some  years 
ago  had  a  similar  result. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  industry  all  the  raw  silk  came 
from  Italy,  France,  China  and  Turkey,  and  it  cost  between 
three  and  four  dollars  a  pound.  Then  the  Japanese  wanted 
to  know  if  they  could  not  send  some  of  their  silk  this  way 
and  were  told  to  do  so  and  be  welcome,  especially  as  they 
offered  it  for  two  dollars  a  pound.  The  Japanese  had  always 
been  known  as  making  the  finest  kind  of  silk  goods  and  the 
Paterson  silk  men  felt  happy  because  they  would  be  able  to 
make  the  same  kind  and  then  make  ever  so  much  more 
money  on  account  of  the  low  price  they  would  pay  the 
Japanese  for  the  raw  material.  Just  there  is  where  they 
made  a  mistake.  When  the  Japanese  silk  arrived  it  was 
found  to  be  so  fine  that  only  the  thinnest  kind  of  goods 
could  be  made  out  of  it,  goods  that  looked  like  fine  veils. 
Paterson  silk  workers  called  it  "everlasting,"  because  it  took 
so  long  to  weave  a  yard.  It  was  not  liked  for  weaving  in 
Paterson  and  nobody  wanted  to  buy  the  goods,  because  they 
were  so  thin.  But  it  was  all  used,  for  the  Paterson  silk 
weavers  twisted  four  threads  of  it  together  and  then  they 
had  a  thread  just  as  thick  as  any  silk  that  had  ever  been 
used  in  the  Paterson  silk  mills.     But  the  Japanese  also 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY  88 

found  out  that  they  could  get  more  money  for  the  silk  and 
so  they  quickly  sent  the  price  up  until  their  silk  cost  just 
as  much  as  other  silk.  Raw  silk  went  up  in  price  to  ten 
dollars  a  pound  during  the  civil  war ;  then  it  went  back  to 
three  or  four  dollars  a  pound ;  during  the  great  world's  war 
it  went  back  to  ten  dollars  a  pound,  but  after  fighting  had 
stopped  it  went  down  again. 

Bury  a  spool  of  silk  thread,  a  spool  of  woollen  thread 
and  a  spool  of  cotton  thread  into  the  ground ;  dig  there  some 
years  later  and  it  will  be  found  that  the  spools,  the  wool  and 
the  cotton  have  gone;  they  have  all  rotted  and  all  that  is 
left  is  the  silk  and  that  is  just  as  good  as  it  was  when  it  was 
buried.  Silk  is  therefore  the  most  lasting  of  all  stuffs 
that  dresses,  ribbons  and  thread  can  be  made  of ;  it  does  not 
rot  and  it  is  hard  to  wear  it  out.  When  silk  dresses  were 
made  of  pure  silk  a  woman  would  wear  a  silk  dress  all  her 
life,  then  give  it  to  her  daughter  and  this  daughter  would 
give  it  to  her  daughter  and  the  dress  would  still  be  good. 
But  raw  silk  costs  several  dollars  a  pound  and  so  men  tried 
to  find  something  they  could  add  to  the  silk  and  make 
cheaper  goods.  They  tried  adding  a  little  in  the  way  of 
cotton  and  woollen  threads,  but  this  did  not  work,  as  the 
goods  did  not  look  as  fine  and  the  wool  and  cotton  would 
wear  out  or  rot  so  quickly  that  the  whole  dress  would  be 
gone  in  a  short  time.  Then  some  man  found  out  that  he 
could  add  a  little  sugar  to  the  dye  stuffs  used  for  silks  of 
light  color  and  a  little  nut  galls  to  black  silks.  In  this  way 
he  could  add  two  or  three  ounces  to  every  pound  of  silk 
woven  in  his  mill,  and  of  course  he  made  money,  for  sugar 
and  nut  galls  cost  only  a  few  cents  a  pound.  This  worked 
very  well,  but  the  silk  manufacturers  went  too  far,  especially 
when  they  found  that  a  salt  of  tin  could  be  added  and  a 
great  deal  more  than  of  either  sugar  or  nut  galls.  Fashions 
kept  changing  and  this  meant  cutting  up  a  silk  dress  from 
one  pattern  to  another;  so  people  wanted  cheaper  silks  and 


84  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

they  got  what  they  wanted,  but  the  stuff  they  bought  was 
more  tin  than  silk;  in  fact,  sometimes  there  would  be  four 
times  more  tin  than  silk.  Dresses  made  of  this  material  do 
not  last  long;  in  fact,  some  of  the  stuff  dresses  were  to  be 
made  of  would  rot  on  the  shelves  before  a  dressmaker  got 
hold  of  it.  So  of  late  years  less  tin  has  been  used  and  good 
silks  have  little  of  it. 

When  the  worm  makes  its  cocoon  it  spins  a  thin  silk 
thread  and  in  doing  so  uses  some  gum,  sometimes  more  and 
sometimes  less.  This  gum  cannot  be  used  in  weaving  silk 
and  must  be  boiled  off.  Of  course  the  less  gum  there  is  in 
raw  silk  the  more  is  the  silk  worth.  So  when  a  bale  of  silk 
arrives  at  the  store  of  a  man  selling  raw  silk,  it  is  examined 
to  find  out  how  much  gum  the  worms  used  in  making  the 
silk.  This  is  called  "conditioning,"  and  this  fixes  the  real  or 
market  value  of  the  silk. 

THE   LOCOMOTIVE   INDUSTRY. 

One  of  the  principal  industries  in  Paterson  in  past 
years  was,  and  to  some  extent  still  is,  the  making  of  loco- 
motives. How  did  the  men  in  early  Paterson  come  to  make 
locomotives?  There  is  an  interesting  story  in  the  answer  to 
this  question.  Up  to  1832  all  locomotives  were  made  in 
England.  The  railroad,  which  had  been  built  a  short  time 
before  between  Paterson  and  Jersey  City,  wanted  a  locomo- 
tive and  so  bought  one  in  England.  It  was  put  into  boxes  in 
England  and  sent  to  this  country  and  the  railroad  people 
sent  it  to  a  shop  along  the  raceway  in  Paterson;  Thomas 
Rogers  was  one  of  the  partners  who  owned  this  machine 
shop.  Rogers  was  to  put  the  locomotive  together  so  that  it 
could  be  used ;  he  did  so,  but  he  first  made  a  pattern  of  every 
piece  of  it.  In  less  than  a  year  he  had  a  locomotive  just  like 
the  one  that  had  been  sent  here  from  England.  On  October 
6,  1837,  he  and  some  of  his  friends  used  the  locomotive  for 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        85 

an  excursion  to  New  Brunswick,  by  way  of  Jersey  City. 
The  engine  worked  just  as  well  as  had  the  one  that  came 
from  England  and  Mr.  Rogers  saw  that  he  could  make  a 
great  deal  of  money  out  of  making  locomotives.  He  cer- 
tainly did  so  and  left  a  great  deal  of  money  to  his  son, 
Jacob  S.  Rogers,  and  this  son  in  turn  made  more  money  by 
making  more  locomotives. 

But  Rogers  could  not  have  this  industry  all  to  himself. 
Other  men  began  to  build  locomotives  and  in  a  few  years 
the  Grant  Locomotive  works  and  the  Danforth  Locomotive 
&  Machine  Company,  afterwards  the  Cooke  Locomotive 
Works,  were  making  locomotives,  the  three  shops  together 
sometimes  turning  out  as  many  as  thirty  locomotives  in  a 
month.  The  Grant  works  failed  and  the  machinery  was 
moved  to  Chicago.  The  Cooke  works  were  moved  from 
lower  Market  street  down  towards  Lake  View,  along  the 
tracks  of  the  Erie  railroad.  It  was  then  that  the  American 
Locomotive  company  bought  all  the  locomotive  works  in 
the  country,  and  even  some  in  Canada,  excepting  one  in 
Philadelphia  and  the  Rogers  works  in  Paterson.  Mr.  Rogers, 
Jacob  S.,  would  not  sell;  but  he  was  getting  old  and  had 
plenty  of  money  and  did  not  want  to  bother  making  more ; 
so  in  1900  he  concluded  that  he  would  shut  up  his  works  and 
he  did  so.  They  were  bought  by  some  men  in  New  York 
who  in  turn  sold  them  to  the  American  Locomotive  Com- 
pany and  this  company  moved  the  machinery  to  the  Cooke 
works,  which  they  had  bought  some  time  before.  So  Pater- 
son today  has  only  one  locomotive  works  instead  of  three. 

Jacob  S.  Rogers  died  worth  a  great  deal  of  money.  In 
his  will  he  left  a  little  of  it  to  some  relatives — he  was  never 
married — but  nearly  all  of  it,  five  million  dollars,  went  to 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art  in  Central  Park,  New 
York.  So  the  money  Mr.  Rogers  and  his  men  made  in  Pat- 
erson was  lost  to  Paterson  forever. 


86  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

There  is  an  interesting  story  connected  with  the  success 
the  Rogers,  father  and  son,  had  in  making  locomotives. 
Jacob  S.  Rogers  one  day  told  this  story  as  follows:  "In  Eng- 
land, in  fact  all  over  Europe,  they  make  locomotives  as  stiff 
and  solid  as  if  they  had  been  cast  out  of  one  solid  piece  of 
metal.  When  a  locomotive  is  put  on  a  road  and  it  is  found 
that  the  locomotive  cannot  go  around  a  curve  because  the 
locomotive  is  too  long  and  stiff,  they  take  up  the  road  and 
straighten  out  the  curve.  I  build  locomotives  just  the  other 
way.  Instead  of  building  the  road  to  suit  the  locomotive,  I 
build  the  locomotive  to  suit  the  road.  The  English  say  that 
my  locomotives  are  wobbly  and  they  call  them  basket  work, 
but  that  is  just  the  kind  of  locomotives  I  want  to  build. 
Show  me  the  road  and  I  will  build  an  engine  to  suit  it. 
Instead  of  fastening  big  wheels  to  a  stiff  and  heavy  body,  I 
put  the  body  loosely  on  the  wheels,  so  that  the  body  can 
move  around  a  little  when  the  engine  goes  around  a  curve. 
The  result  is  that  a  road  can  be  built  a  great  deal  cheaper 
for  my  engines  than  for  English  engines.  It  costs  me  a 
tariff  of  forty  cents  for  every  dollar's  worth  of  steel  and  iron 
I  get  from  England,  and  I  have  got  to  go  to  England  for  my 
steel  and  iron,  but  I  am  selling  engines  to  Englishmen  in 
Canada  and  Australia  and  other  British  possessions.  The 
English  in  England  would  not  have  any  of  my  engines,  for 
they  are  used  to  their  own  and  their  railroads  are  built  for 
their  engines,  but  I  can  sell  engines  all  over  the  rest  of  the 
world.  The  English  do  not  like  to  be  taught  by  an  Ameri- 
can ;  some  day  they  will  find  out  that  I  am  right,  but  when 
that  time  comes  I  shall  not  want  to  build  any  more  locomo- 
tives." 

OTHER  WORKERS  IN  IRON. 

Some  years  ago  there  were  two  large  iron  manufactur- 
ing establishments,  one  on  each  side  of  the  Erie  tracks  near 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        87 

Lake  View,  the  Paterson  Iron  Company  and  the  Passaic 
Rolling  Mill.  Franklin  C.  Beckwith  made  a  success  of  the 
Paterson  Iron  Company,  for  in  his  day  there  was  no  rolling 
mill  with  big  steam  hammers  in  this  part  of  the  country. 
When  the  shaft  of  a  large  steamer  broke  and  it  was  necessary 
to  get  another,  this  had  to  be  done  in  a  hurry  in  order  that 
the  steamer  might  get  to  sea  again  as  quickly  as  possible. 
To  send  far  out  West  for  a  new  shaft  meant  a  great  deal  of 
delay  and  was  unsatisfactory  because  the  men  who  owned 
the  steamer  could  not  see  to  it  themselves  that  the  shaft 
was  made  just  as  they  wanted  it.  So  Mr.  Beckwith  made 
these  shafts  and  he  got  for  them  almost  any  price  he  asked. 
What  was  true  of  the  broken  shaft  of  a  steamer  was  true 
also  of  many  other  broken  large  pieces  of  iron  and  Mr. 
Beckwith's  establishment  was  kept  busy  most  of  the  time. 
But  when  railroads  ran  faster  trains  out  West  and  when 
other  rolling  mills  with  big  steam  hammers  started  into 
business  in  this  part  of  the  country,  the  business  of  the  Pat- 
erson Iron  Company  fell  off  and  it  was  closed  in  1897.  The 
place  it  occupied  is  now  used  by  the  Erie  railroad  for  a 
yard. 

Watts  Cooke  founded  the  Passaic  Rolling  Mill.  He 
had  been  a  superintendent  on  the  Delaware,  Lackawanna 
&  Western  railroad  and  he  thought  he  could  make  money 
by  building  bridges  for  railroads.  He  was  right,  for  he  built 
a  great  many  bridges  and  he  did  so  according  to  a  plan 
which  was  new  at  that  time.  When  men  wanted  a  bridge 
built  the  work  was  done  by  a  number  of  laborers  and  black- 
smiths at  the  place  where  the  bridge  was  to  be  erected. 
After  the  piers  of  the  bridge  were  up  came  a  long  job  with 
iron.  The  iron  had  to  be  forged  and  put  into  shape  and  then 
put  together.  Watts  Cooke  went  to  work  in  a  different  way. 
The  piers  had  to  be  built  at  the  stream,  because  they  could 
not  be  built  anywhere  else  and  then  moved  to  the  stream, 
but  the  bridge  itself  was  built  in  Paterson.    A  little  bridge, 


88  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

like  a  toy  bridge,  was  made  of  small  pieces  of  wood,  each 
piece  fitting  just  where  it  belonged.  Then  the  real  bridge, 
of  heavy  iron,  was  made  after  the  little  model  and  it  is  easy 
to  see  that  this  could  be  done  a  great  deal  cheaper  and  better 
in  works  where  they  had  big  furnaces  and  forges  and  steam 
riveting  machines  than  on  the  banks  of  a  distant  stream. 
The  bridge  was  put  together  in  the  yard  of  the  works,  with- 
out being  fastened  together;  then  it  was  taken  down  and 
shipped  to  where  the  bridge  was  to  stand;  the  subsequent 
work  of  putting  it  together  amounted  to  very  little  com- 
pared to  what  had  to  be  done  under  the  old  plan.  The 
Passaic  Rolling  Mill  built  a  large  part  of  the  elevated  rail- 
roads in  New  York,  the  Seventh  Regiment  armory,  the 
Washington  bridge  over  the  Harlem  river  and  many  of  the 
bridges  in  Passaic  county  and  other  parts  of  the  country. 
At  the  death  of  Watts  Cooke  in  1908  the  works  passed  into 
other  hands. 

MAKING  LINEN  THREAD. 

The  history  of  the  Barbour  flax  spinning  works  in  Pat- 
erson  is  not  as  interesting  as  is  the  history  of  other  industries 
in  this  city,  for  it  was  only  a  matter  of  putting  money 
where  more  could  be  made.  Four  of  the  Barbour  brothers 
had  been  making  linen  thread  in  Lisburn,  Ireland.  They 
sold  a  great  deal  of  their  thread  in  this  country,  but  the 
price  was  high  on  account  of  the  tariff  they  had  to  pay  to 
get  the  thread  into  the  country.  So  two  of  the  brothers, 
Thomas  and  Robert,  came  to  this  country  in  1864,  and 
began  making  thread  in  Paterson.  They  bought  a  mill  in 
which  John  Colt  had  made  calico,  but  this  soon  proved  too 
small  for  them.  In  1877  they  built  a  mill  on  Grand  street ; 
the  next  year  they  doubled  it  and  so  they  kept  on  adding  to 
it  until  the  mill  grew  to  be  as  big  as  it  is  now.  Thomas 
»nd  Robert  are  both  dead.   Thomas  left  a  son,  William,  who 


STRUGGLE  FOR  INDUSTRIAL  SUPREMACY        89 

succeeded  his  father;  he  lived  most  of  the  time  in  New 
York,  but  he  was  always  a  good  friend  to  Paterson,  where 
he  spent  a  great  deal  of  his  money,  a  large  part  going  to  the 
hospitals  and  other  charitable  institutions.  His  sons  now 
run  the  works,  for  William  Barbour  died  March  1,  1917. 
Robert  Barbour  left  a  son,  J.  Edwards  Barbour,  who  for 
many  years  managed  the  Paterson  mills.  In  1909  he  began 
to  manufacture  for  himself  and  he  now  has  a  mill  at  Lake 
View  and  another  in  AUentown,  Pa. 


Municipal  Administration 


Municipal  Administration 


In  the  early  days  of  this  part  of  New  Jersey  all  the 
ground  now  covered  by  the  city  of  Paterson  was  in  the 
township  of  Acquackanonk  and  this  township  was  in  Essex 
county.  Paterson  was  first  put  on  the  map  as  a  township 
in  1831  as  a  part  of  Essex  county.  On  February  7,  1837, 
the  lawmakers  of  New  Jersey  passed  a  law  which  created 
the  county  of  Passaic  by  taking  the  township  of  Acquacka- 
nonk from  Essex  county  and  a  large  part  of  the  township 
of  Saddle  River  from  Bergen  county. 

THE   CITY   OF  PATERSON. 

When  Paterson  became  a  township  the  people  here  were 
very  poor  and  money  was  so  scarce  that  even  a  rich  man 
of  those  days  would  be  considered  poor  today.  Some  idea 
of  what  money  was  worth  in  those  days  may  be  gained  from 
the  fact  that  the  counsel  of  the  township,  Daniel  Barkalow, 
one  of  the  most  prominent  lawyers  Passaic  county  produced, 
was  satisfied  with  a  salary  of  ten  dollars  for  a  whole  year's 
work.  The  voters  every  year  decided  how  much  money 
should  be  spent  for  the  various  branches  of  the  government, 
until  in  1849  when  they  decided  not  to  spend  another  dollar 
for  any  purpose.  There  was  no  money  for  the  poor,  for  the 
streets,  for  the  schools  or  for  anything  else.  The  poormaster 
had  paid  ten  dollars  a  year  rent  for  the  poor  house  and  had 
received  one  dollar  a  week  for  the  board  of  each  of  the 
poor;  the  authorities  sold  the  poor  house.  The  township 
owned  what  was  known  as  the  "town  lot,"  over  four  and 
seven-tenths  acres  at  what  is  now  Broadway  and  East  Eigh- 


94  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATBRSON  HISTORY 

teenth  street;  this  was  sold  for  eight  hundred  dollars.  At 
the  regular  election  in  1850  the  voters  again  decided  in 
favor  of  no  taxes;  a  special  election  was  held  and  the  result 
was  the  same;  everything  seemed  at  a  standstill  when 
another  election  was  called  and  the  voters  agreed  to  spend 
fifty  dollars  for  the  support  of  the  poor  for  one  year  and 
they  would  not  agree  to  give  a  dollar  for  any  other  purpose. 
What  little  money  was  used  for  the  government  came  from 
the  pockets  of  men  who  were  willing  to  loan  it  to  the  town- 
ship and  trust  to  the  honor  of  the  people  to  pay  it  back 
some  time  in  the  future. 

But  there  came  a  change,  for  there  was  more  work,  the 
factories  being  busy.  Th  people  decided  in  1851  by  a  vote 
of  772  to  330  to  change  the  township  into  a  city  and  the 
government  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  council,  the  president 
of  which  was  pretty  much  what  the  mayor  became  in  after 
years.  There  were  three  wards  and  their  boundaries  were 
very  simple.  All  of  Paterson  lying  east  of  Main  street  and 
north  of  Market  was  the  East  ward ;  all  west  of  Main  street 
and  north  of  Market  was  the  West  ward  and  the  rest  of  the 
city  was  the  South  ward.  In  1854  the  city  reached  out  and 
added  what  is  now  the  First  and  Second  wards  of  the  city, 
excepting  the  land  lying  north  of  Totowa  avenue  and  west 
of  the  Oldham  brook;  this  strip  was  added  the  following 
year  and  the  whole  made  into  the  North  ward.  The  Fifth 
ward  was  made  the  same  year  by  taking  from  the  South 
ward  all  east  of  Cross  and  Marshall  streets.  The  title  of  the 
government  was  changed  to  "The  Mayor  and  Aldermen  of 
the  City  of  Paterson,"  and  large  leather  badges  were  pro- 
vided for  the  aldermen;  these  badges  indicated  the  ward 
the  bearer  represented  and  were  in  use  for  a  number  of 
years.  In  1869  the  city  took  enough  real  estate  from  the 
township  of  Acquackanonk  to  make  the  city's  southerly 
line  Crooks  avenue  and  the  westerly  line  West  Twenty- 
Seventh  street. 


-x 


\ss^ 


Paterson's  First  City  Hall 


MUNICIPAL  ADMINISTRATION  95 

THE  FIRST  CITY  HALL. 

In  1869  the  aldermen  thought  it  would  be  very  nice  for 
the  Paterson  of  the  future  if  the  city  had  a  park  in  its 
centre  and  a  city  hall  in  the  centre  of  the  park.  So  they 
appointed  a  commission  to  buy  the  property  bounded  by 
Market,  Ellison,  Colt  and  Church  streets.  Some  of  the  tax- 
payers thought  this  was  going  too  far  and  they  went  to 
court  about  it;  the  court  decided  that  the  aldermen  had  no 
right  to  give  to  others  the  powers  which  the  legislature  had 
given  only  to  the  aldermen ;  the  aldermen  might  buy  prop- 
erty for  the  city  but  they  could  not  get  others  to  attend  to 
that  matter  for  them.  As  so  many  taxpayers  had  shown 
that  they  objected  to  having  a  park  in  the  centre  of  the 
city,  the  aldermen  satisfied  themselves  by  buying  a  building 
for  a  city  hall.  The  building  they  bought  had  been  erected 
by  Peter  Colt  in  1814  as  a  residence  for  himself;  he  had 
used  in  its  construction  the  brown  stone  taken  from  the 
walls  of  the  large  mill  owned  by  the  Society  but  which  had 
burned  down.  The  Colt  residence  was  two  stories  high  and 
stood  where  the  police  station  stands  now.  From  its  front 
entrance  a  large  lawn  reached  down  to  Main  street.  The 
aldermen  cut  down  the  hill  in  front  of  the  building  and  the 
street  thus  made  is  now  called  Washington.  This  left  the 
building  high  up  in  the  air  and  so  the  aldermen  built  another 
story  under  it.  In  the  picture  of  the  building  the  former 
entrance  can  be  easily  distinguished  over  the  entrance  built 
afterwards.  The  building  was  used  by  the  city  officers  until 
the  present  city  hall  was  erected.  It  was  destroyed  in  the 
great  fire  in  1902. 

THE  PRESENT  CITY  HALL. 

In  1891  the  city  celebrated  the  centennial  of  its  found- 
ing. A  part  of  this  celebration  was  the  beginning  of  the 
erection  of  the  present  city  hall.    Where  that  building  now 


96  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

stands  stood  formerly  St.  Paul's  Episcopal  church ;  this  had 
a  little  city  block  all  to  itself,  Colt  street  separating  it  on 
the  north  from  an  old  hotel,  the  Hamilton  House,  and  a 
row  of  oflBces.  The  church,  hotel  and  offices  were  removed 
to  make  room  for  the  present  city  hall.  The  fire  in  1902 
burned  out  the  inside  of  the  new  building,  but  did  not 
destroy  the  walls.  Until  the  interior  of  the  city  hall  could 
be  repaired  and  fitted  up  the  city  offices  were  scattered  about 
in  many  different  places,  the  court  house,  post  office,  Entre 
Nous  lyceum,  the  lecture  room  of  the  First  Presbyterian 
church  and  other  places. 

THE  PUBLIC  LIBRARY. 

In  1884  the  people  of  Paterson  voted  in  favor  of  a  public 
library.  Five  citizens  were  appointed  by  the  mayor  and^ 
they  began  work  by  renting  a  building  on  Church  street, 
between  Market  and  Ellison  streets.  Then  came  the  offer 
of  a  site.  Mrs.  Mary  E.  Ryle,  the  daughter  of  Charles  Dan- 
forth,  one  of  the  prominent  locomotive  builders  of  Paterson, 
and  widow  of  William  Ryle,  a  wealthy  silk  importer,  wanted 
to  do  something  in  memory  of  her  father.  The  residence 
occupied  by  the  Danforth  family  for  many  years  stood  on 
the  northeast  corner  of  Market  and  Church  streets.  This 
Mrs.  Ryle  offered  to  give  to  the  library  trustees  and  of 
course  her  offer  was  gratefully  accepted.  The  only  condi- 
tion Mrs.  Ryle  made  was  that  the  library  should  be  named 
after  her  father  and  to  this  day  it  is  known  as  the  Danforth 
Free  Public  Library.  Mrs.  Ryle,  however,  was  not  satisfied 
with  what  she  had  done  and  so  she  paid  all  the  expenses 
incurred  in  making  her  former  home  a  convenient  place  for 
a  library.  When  the  building  and  its  contents  were  de- 
stroyed in  the  fire  of  1902,  and  the  trustees  decided  to  put 
up  a  new  building  on  Broadway,  Auburn  and  Van  Houten 
streets,  Mrs.  Ryle  contributed  one  hundred  thousand  dollars 
towards  paying  the  expenses. 


Paterson's  First  Public  Library  Building 


MUNICIPAL  ADMINISTRATION  97 

PURCHASE  OF  PARKS. 

The  Board  of  Aldermen  in  1888  purchased  the  Eastside 
and  Westside  parks  and  then  passed  them  into  the  custody 
of  a  board  appointed  for  that  purpose  by  the  mayor.  A 
number  of  smaller  parks  have  since  been  added  in  various 
parts  of  the  city,  the  largest  being  the  former  Pennington 
homestead  lying  opposite  Westside  park. 

CHANGES  IN  THE  CITY  GOVERNMENT. 

The  legislature  of  1907  provided  that  the  mayor  of 
Paterson  should  appoint  Commissioners  of  Finance,  of 
Public  Works  and  of  Police  and  Fire.  The  Board  of  Finance 
divides  up  the  money  received  from  the  taxpayers  among 
the  various  branches  of  the  city  government  and  looks  after 
the  money  interests  of  the  city ;  without  the  approval  of  the 
Board  of  Finance  no  bills,  excepting  those  of  the  Board  of 
Education,  can  be  paid.  The  Board  of  Public  Works  looks 
after  the  public  buildings,  the  streets  and  such  matters.  The 
title  of  the  board  is  enough  to  show  the  work  looked  after 
by  the  Board  of  Police  and  Fire  Commissioners. 

THE   FIRE   DEPARTMENT. 

There  is  an  interesting  incident  connected  with  the  in- 
troduction of  the  first  steam  fire  engine  in  Paterson.  For 
many  years  the  firemen  of  the  city  received  no  pay  for  the 
work  they  did  and  each  company  tried  to  do  better  than  any 
of  the  others.  Their  principal  means  of  putting  out  fires 
were  hand  engines.  In  1860  Washington  Engine  Company 
No.  3,  located  on  Prospect  street,  near  Ellison,  asked  the 
aldermen  to  buy  a  steam  engine  for  it,  agreeing  to  contribute 
a  thousand  dollars  out  of  the  company's  treasury  towards 
the  cost.  Steam  engines  were  something  new  and  none  of 
the  aldermen  had  ever  seen  any.  Engine  Company  No.  3 
was  not  satisfied  with  the  inaction  of  the  aldermen  and,  in 


98  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

order  to  show  the  people  of  Paterson  the  kind  of  work  a 
steam  engme  could  do,  they  had  one  brought  from  New 
York.  There  was  a  big  crowd  present  when  the  engine  was 
set  to  work  pumping  at  one  of  the  raceways  in  the  lower 
part  of  the  city.  All  were  surprised  and  many  were  ready 
to  help  buy  the  machine,  so  that  $1,400  was  subscribed  on 
the  spot.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  war  Engine  Company 
No.  3  would  have  obtained  that  engine,  but  when  the  Union 
needed  men  so  many  of  the  fire  fighters  enlisted  that  little 
attention  was  paid  to  the  fire  department.  After  the  war 
was  over  the  members  of  Passaic  Engine  Company  No.  1, 
whose  house  was  on  Van  Houten  street,  nearly  opposite  to 
where  fire  headquarters  are  today,  thought  they  would  get 
ahead  of  No.  3  and  so  they  circulated  a  petition  among 
prominent  men  asking  the  aldermen  to  buy  a  steam  fire 
engine  for  Engine  Company  No.  1.  Those  who  had  charge 
of  the  petition  and  those  who  signed  it  were  made  to  promise 
not  to  tell  anybody  what  was  being  done,  for  the  men  of 
No.  1  were  afraid  that  the  men  of  No.  3  might  spoil  their 
plans,  for  it  was  known  that  No.  3  also  wanted  an  engine. 
One  of  the  men  of  No.  1  told  the  secret  to  his  wife  and  she 
blabbed  it  the  next  morning  to  her  next  door  neighbor,  who 
was  the  wife  of  a  member  of  No.  3.  The  rest  of  the  story 
need  hardly  be  told.  The  petition  from  No.  3,  hurriedly 
prepared,  was  granted  by  the  aldermen  while  the  men  of 
No.  1  were  still  looking  for  signatures  to  their  petition.  And 
so  it  came  to  pass  that  Engine  Company  No.  3  was  the  first 
company  of  the  old  volunteer  department  to  have  a  steam 
fire  engine. 

The  change  from  the  volunteer  department  to  the  paid 
department  was  gradual.  First  the  aldermen  gave  a  few 
hundred  dollars  to  each  fire  company  every  year;  then  the 
captain  and  engineer  were  paid  and  then  followed  the  ap- 
pointment of  paid  call  men,  the  latter  being  members  of  the 
department  who  worked  at  their  usual  occupations  until  a 


MUNICIPAL  ADMINISTRATION  99 

fire  alarm  was  sounded  when  they  dropped  everything  and 
hurried  to  the  scene  of  the  fire.  Finally  came  the  present 
department  with  its  large  force  of  men  and  the  best  of  fire 
fighting  machines. 

THE  PUBLIC  SCHOOLS. 

It  is  not  at  all  certain  that  Guiliaem  Bertholf  taught 
school  in  1693  in  what  is  now  Paterson,  but  it  is  likely  that 
he  did.  In  one  of  his  letters  he  refers  to  himself  as  ''the 
pastor  of  the  churches  of  Hackensack  and  Acquackanonk, 
the  resident  schoolmaster  and  consoler  of  the  sick."  As 
Paterson,  before  it  was  called  Paterson,  was  a  part  of  Ac- 
quackanonk, the  chances  are  that  the  school  teachers  of 
Paterson  today  are  the  successors  of  Rev.  Mr.  Bertholf.  The 
Acquackanonk  church  records  tell  of  a  man  named  James 
Billington,  who  was  a  schoolmaster,  and  who  was  married 
in  1742,  the  name  of  his  bride  being  Anna  America.  Perhaps 
Mr.  Billington  taught  school  somewhere  in  what  is  now 
Paterson.  There  was  a  school  in  1768  at  Pompton  and  in 
1775  at  Singac;  in  1802  there  was  a  log  school  house  near 
what  is  now  Athenia — schools  all  about  Paterson  but  none 
in  Paterson. 

Just  when  the  first  school  was  built  in  Paterson  is  not 
known  but  records  tell  of  school  being  taught  before  1820 
in  a  building  which  stood  near  where  the  Market  street 
bridge  now  crosses  into  Bergen  county.  There  were  several 
school  teachers  there,  one  after  another,  and  some  of  the 
pupils  were  ferried  across  the  river  from  Bergen  county,  for 
there  was  no  bridge  there  at  that  time.  The  teacher  and 
his  family  lived  in  the  same  building  in  which  he  taught 
school;  there  were  several  classes  and  each  was  taught  for 
three  hours  in  the  forenoon  and  three  hours  in  the  after- 
noon ;  there  was  a  half  holiday  every  Saturday  and  later  on 
a  whole  holiday  on  Saturday,  but  there  were  no  vacations. 


100  FOUR  CHAPTERS  OF  PATERSON  HISTORY 

But  before  this  time  the  Society  for  Establishing  Useful 
Manufactures  had  done  something  towards  education.  In 
1794  the  superintendent  of  the  Society  reported  to  the 
directors  that  a  number  of  children  would  be  taken  out  of- 
the  Society's  factory  by  their  parents  unless  something  was 
done  in  the  way  of  teaching  these  children.  So  the  directors 
told  the  superintendent  to  employ  a  schoolmaster  to  teach 
these  children  on  Sundays.  This  was  probably  done,  for  two 
years  later  the  Society  gave  John  Wright,  schoolmaster, 
the  use  of  a  house  in  which  to  teach  school.  But  before 
John  Wright  began  to  teach,  Miss  Sarah  Colt  had  started 
a  Sunday  school  and  she  carried  it  on  for  a  number  of  years; 
she  was  the  daughter  of  the  Society's  superintendent  and 
was  only  twelve  years  of  age  when  she  began  to  teach.  It 
may  seem  curious  in  these  days  that  reading,  writing  and 
arithmetic  should  be  taught  in  Sunday  schools,  but  the 
teaching  of  these  branches  of  education  was  the  main  object 
of  Sunday  schools  in  the  early  days  of  Paterson.  Even  as 
late  as  1822  the  Paterson  Union  Sunday  School  Society  de- 
clared that  its  object  was  teaching  "the  rudiments  of  the 
English  language,  religion  and  morality." 

In  1814  the  Society  gave  a  lot  on  the  southeast  comer 
of  Market  and  Union  streets  for  the  purpose  of  education 
and  the  building  there  was  occupied  by  the  Paterson  Acad- 
emy, which  had  been  started  some  three  years  previous.  It 
was  in  this  building  that  the  first  free  school,  that  is,  a  school 
at  the  expense  of  the  public,  was  begun  in  1827,  the  lower 
floor  of  the  building  being  rented  for  $2.50  per  month,  but 
it  was  understood  that  the  school  was  only  for  the  benefit 
of  the  children  of  the  poor.  The  cost  of  education  in  Pat- 
erson in  1831  was  only  $300  and  in  1835  the  school  trustees 
got  along  with  $200,  this  sum  including  all  expenses.  These 
schools  were  called  "free  schools  for  the  poor"  and  it  was 
not  until  1847  that  the  words  "for  the  poor"  were  dropped 
from  the  title.    Even  then  it  required  a  permit  from  the 


MUNICIPAL  ADMINISTRATION  101 

school  trustees  before  a  child  could  enter  school  and  no 
family  could  send  more  than  one  child  without  paying  a 
tuition  fee.  Children  were  required  to  furnish  their  own 
books  and  stationery. 

In  1837  the  school  trustees  rented  the  basement  of  the 
Cross  street  Methodist  church  and  in  this  same  basement 
the  first  session  of  the  Passaic  county  courts  was  held. 
While  court  was  in  session  the  children  played.  School  was 
next  held  in  the  basement  of  a  Baptist  church  in  Broadway, 
afterwards  the  German  Presbyterian  church.  The  school 
was  then  moved  to  the  corner  of  Union  and  Smith  streets; 
this  building  was  burned  down  in  1846  and  the  school  went 
back  to  the  basement  of  the  Cross  street  church.  In  1848 
the  trustees  bought  a  lot  on  the  south  side  of  Ellison  street, 
between  Main  and  Prospect  streets;  there  was  already  a 
building  on  the  lot,  but  another  was  erected  in  the  rear ;  the 
lower  floor  of  this  was  used  as  a  private  school ;  the  public 
school  was  held  upstairs  and  among  the  pupils  who  attended 
was  the  late  William  J.  Rogers,  who  was  subsequently  super- 
intendent of  the  schools  in  Paterson  for  a  number  of  years. 
The  records  do  not  tell  what  the  school  hours  were  but  they 
do  say  that  these  hours  began  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

Progress  in  building  schools — and  also  in  attending 
them — ^now  became  rapid  until  there  was  established  our 
present  large  and  efl&cient  system.  Under  the  city  charter 
of  1871  the  members  of  the  Board  of  Education  were  elected 
annually  by  voters,  two  from  each  ward ;  this  was  done  away 
with  by  the  legislature  in  1902,  since  which  time  the  mem- 
bers of  the  board  have  been  appointed  by  the  mayor  of  the 
city. 


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